


Addict

by Firepup



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Action, Angst, M/M, Romance, Short, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 30,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firepup/pseuds/Firepup
Summary: Action/Angst/RomanceOnce again, Ink, Guardian of the Multiverse, Hero to All, and mild paint thief, is locked in an epic battle with the ever-scheming Error over the fate of an innocent AU when a horrible blunder sends their usual clash off the tracks. Suddenly, Ink finds himself fighting to save Error’s life instead.
Relationships: Errink, Error!Sans/Ink!Sans, Error/Ink, Sans & Sans (Undertale), Sans/Sans (Undertale), sanscest
Comments: 56
Kudos: 176





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, dear reader!
> 
> This short follows a battle between Ink!Sans (OC by Comyet) and Error!Sans (OC by Lover of Piggies)—You probably don’t need to be well-versed in these characters to follow along, since I’ve put my own spin on them anyway, but it might help to at least know who they are upfront before starting! So...
> 
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> 
> Long before peace or PJ existed between them…
> 
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He may be nothing more than an empty, soulless shell of a person, but when an entire world was on the brink of annihilation and every man, woman, or child called out with a desperate plea for help, Ink would always, without fail, come to their aid. Because that’s what any good protagonist would do. That’s what a hero would do.

At least, that’s what he _would do_ if there were anything so wonderfully interesting happening right now. Yet for weeks now, Ink had gone on his usual patrol, checking and rechecking on the many unformed worlds, but no matter how many times he looked; nothing was amiss. Nothing! Not even with a supposed armada of villains out there with a grudge against the Multiverse! With no excuse to visit any of the worlds, the guardian was simply left waiting around aimlessly, slowly losing his mind in the Anti-Void’s empty expanse. Lying flat on his back now, the guardian groaned loudly in utter boredom.

Man, sometimes being a hero was dull work.

Sure, Ink had considered the charms of a more villainous role before, but in every story it was the hero who made new friends, met new people, and formed lifelong bonds. There wasn’t anything quite like standing in the sea of a grateful mass of smiling faces. While the emptiness in his chest prevented him from sharing their glee, it was easy enough to mimic their good mood. Standing among such a swatch of happiness made it easy for the leech to sponge up enough of their emotion for himself. He wouldn’t take it all, of course. They’d never even know it was gone.

Ink only took enough to keep his yellow paint topped off. Permanently.

Yellow paint was the good stuff.

He went anywhere he could find it. Literally. No restriction on dimension or universe. He’d hop from one alternate to another on an endless journey to fill up his vials. With no hometown of his own; he was a _traveler._ A world-hopper. Oh, you wouldn’t believe the wondrous things he saw! The Creators’ imaginations never failed to awe him. A sea of flowers here. A sky of sparkling stars there. Every nook and cranny was filled with love and care. He was never _not_ fascinated by a world he would find or the dedication that went into crafting them. Even the desolate ones with glittery dust blowing across the icy blue tint of untrodden snow had a sort of quiet beauty to them.

Stealing all the color from any one of those precious creations and plunging them into a world of lifeless black and white was surely a heinous act. But taking a pinch here or there, where it wouldn’t be missed, in exchange for assisting the locals with problems they couldn’t handle themselves was –hopefully—not so villainous. Everyone he had ever met had called him “good”—nevermind the fact that they never knew he took anything from them to begin with. Over time, this harmless, mutual transaction had even earned him the equally heroic title of “Guardian of the Multiverse”.

Ink liked the ring of it. It made him sound like he had his own place even among their bright and colorful worlds.

He was eager to welcome even a fleeting role in any one of those works of art. No matter how brief the sense of belonging. So, when they needed him, Ink always came, playing out the role of a hero they desperately wanted him to.

Today was no different. The Guardian jolted up quickly, hovering a hand over his chest, when he felt the dull sting of his void magic splatter somewhere in the furthest, untrodden corner of the multiverse. His eyelights shifting through a myriad of shapes as a sudden surge of color leaked into his empty chest from the faint link.

Panic, Fear, Sadness. A clear distress signal.

The dark, inky, half-formed magic that passed as his excuse for a soul was already soaking in the colors of its distant prey, leeching the anxiety up like a hungry sponge. He’d better go retrieve the spilled extraction before it caused too much trouble.

It had been way too long since he’d felt one of the worlds in such peril! How fun was that!? Finally, some action! He was looking forward to it!

Ink summersaulted onto his feet. Unable to contain his eager grin in anticipation, the guardian quickly unlatched his oversized brush from his back, drawing a quick black line across the doodle-sphere’s bland floor in front of him, and hopped over the smear with a prompt _splat_. His body melted away into the dark liquid instantly.

The soulless being rose from his splattered ink portal on the other side like a demon summoned from the depths, limbs forming into creation from the abysmal darkness, to the terrorized cries of the local citizens. Once he solidified and the white of his bones returned he looked around with a wide smile, taking in the utter chaos around him; from the ransacked, one-roomed lab that he appeared to be standing in to the shrill sound of screaming terror he heard beyond its walls.

“Sounds like you have a visitor,” Ink grinned personably up at his summoner. He shifted over the broken glass below his feet. The last remnants of the shattered container that had once safely held part of his voided soul from leeching off this world. Those once-black droplets that had been held within the broken glass were no longer an empty color.

“BROTHER?” A twinge of hope asked, “IS–IS THAT YOU?”

“Nope!” He chimed back, “Try again.”

“ARE YOU… ARE YOU THE GUARDIAN THEN?” A rather defeated-looking Papyrus corrected.

“That’s what they call me,” Ink continued to smile thoughtlessly back as he magically sucked up the freshly dyed blots of blue and white emotion splattered across the floor. They swirled around him before disappearing beneath the opening near his scarf that Ink held wide of his neck. The droplets disappeared behind the cloth, reconnecting to his own magic. It felt great to have the long-lost drips of newly saturated color meld into the blackness within his chest; safely stored for later use. “Name’s Ink. You must be the person who needs help?”

“I—SANS TOLD ME TO CALL YOU WITH THAT BEFORE HE—” He winced roughly, looking down at his shaky hands at a loss for words. A trickle of dust fell from between his bright gloves, “OH, PLEASE! YOU HAVE TO HELP! THERE WAS A STRANGE, BLACK SKELETON WHO—”

“Ah. Got it,” Ink interrupted smoothly, securing his large paintbrush firmly onto his back. He couldn’t hold back the quirk in his grin. That description certainly sounded familiar. Guess his favorite glitch was still alive after all this time! Perfect. He’d been wanting to try out a new idea he’d thought up. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of _him_ now. It’s your job to make sure your human resets after all this is done. Alright?”

“RESET?”

“Oh.” Ink blinked emotionlessly back at him. He tapped his vial, then licked a dab of orange paint off his finger. Immediately his eyeshapes shifted into exclamations. “Do you NOT know?!”

Some Papyrus did know and some Papyrus didn’t. Gosh, it was always so hard to tell on the first meeting!

But look!

There was dust on this one’s gloves, though, cradling the one-who-would-know’s remains protectively against his chest. So…

Sans was already dead?!

That called for a different emotion. So, he licked a dab of blue paint next, letting his surprise shift to remorse.

“You must’ve been through a lot already,” Ink stepped closer to the hunched form and squeezed the tall skeleton’s arm reassuringly, though the other looked more bothered by his brother’s mood-swinging look-alike than soothed, “But don’t worry. After things have settled down, you can go find a human and ask them to reset. They’ll know exactly what you mean. It’ll help,” He said with as much empathy as a soulless being could offer, “I promise.”

The poor guy looked so shaken. It was terrible to force a pacifist Papyrus to handle this. This was awful. What if he remembered resets after learning about them now? What if he remembered _this?_ Wouldn’t it be horrible to leave this mar on his memor—He licked a dab of green paint off his second finger—Nah, he’d be fine. Ink was sure the kid’s powers were fool-proof. It was a near constant in every universe.

“Stay safe in the meantime,” He waved with his usual plastered grin, “Hopefully I’ll see you after this mess!” He’d have to remember to give him another sealed vial of his empty soul’s essence, so they could invite him back again. He would’ve jotted the note down on his scarf, but it sounded like there were much more pressing matters afoot as he jogged up the stairs of the cramped, underground lab into the cries on the street above.

Ink poked his head out of the cellar to a stampede of terrorized citizens fleeing down the icy roads of a modern, urban take on the classic Snowdin. The sky above was… well, _missing_ would be the proper word. What should have been a sky, or a cavern ceiling—who knew anymore—was just an endless plane of blood red hanging ominously above their heads, cycling frantically through a series of white ones and zeroes. The binary rapid firing by too fast to read, not that anyone was trying to stop and read the code. People were too busy panicking for that.

The masses’ more immediate attention no doubt on the slithering web of blue string circled around every building, every tree. The webbing was intricately woven around nearly every visible surface and only seemed to be spreading with a hive-like mind of its own with every second that ticked by. Occasionally, the strings would get enough of a hold on its prey to squeeze, crumbling buildings in half to the peril of those below, shattering age-old trees to splinters, or reducing the monsters unlucky enough to be caught in the web into a mere cloud of blood and dust.

Ink whistled appreciatively at his foe’s work. They’d waited pretty long to call him this time, didn’t they? Looked like Error already had his claws dug pretty deeply into this world. If he was being honest, these people might not make it.

No. A good protagonist would be more optimistic.

Ink unlatched his favorite yellow vial from his sash and took a brief swig of the pleasant paint.

“Heheh!” He laughed to himself looking around at all the chaos. On the bright-side he’d be in for one epic fight! This was going to be great! He’d win this, for sure! All these people were counting on him, after all! They were going to have such a celebration afterwards –they’d be so happy with him! Maybe they’d even have cake! The Anti-Void didn’t have cake.

With the promise of cake on the line, the guardian excitedly grabbed the next fleeing monster that crossed his path by the shoulder, spinning them around.

“Why, hello!” He greeted too cheerily for the occasion. It was pretty obvious his behavior struck the young rabbit as odd because she looked about ready to knee him where it hurt and bolt in the opposite direction. No doubt assuming he was some crazed maniac who was in on the surrounding madness, not the dimension-hopping hero that he was.

Good thing skeletons didn’t have anything for her to knee!

“Oh no, don’t worry! I’m a good guy –I’m on your side!” Ink quickly announced with a wide, skull-splittingly cheerful grin as the knee to the groin failed spectacularly. Though, his words didn’t seem to assure her much at all. “I’m looking for the person who did this,” He motioned to the missing sky excitedly, “You haven’t seen a black skeleton hanging around have you? Kinda looks like me? Red sockets, yellow eyes? Fuzzy, squared glitches hovering around him?”

“Of course, I—I-I saw him,” She stammered back with pure fear. Misplaced fear, of course! Ink knew everyone loved him eventually.

“You did?!” The guardian leaned in excitedly, eyelights swapping into an exclamation and a star. She leaned away in fright, but was trapped firmly by his hold on her shoulder. What luck that the first person he asked had seen his opponent! This was already turning out splendidly! “That’s great news! Where was he? Which way did he go?”

“After doing this, h—he went that way,” Her voice quivered as she pointed down the main road, past what most universes called Snowdin into their equivalent of Waterfall. “That skeleton—he’s all over the news!” She fumbled as she tried to pull out her cellphone as evidence, pointing shakily to the brightly lit screen. Blurry, candid shots of a dark figure and short clips of mayhem were flashing across the screen. Text scrolled by on a red banner with the bold highlight; _Assault on the Palace! The President in Danger!_ “P-please don’t hurt me! I-I don’t know--”

But the headline had caught Ink’s attention enough to completely overlook the now cowering rabbit. The palace, huh? He was already that far in? He’d better get there fast if he was going to have that epic, world-saving fight!

“Thanks!” The guardian beamed, releasing his hostage much to the girl’s relief. He drew another flat line across the floor, then offered his confused victim a thumbs up, “Good luck running for your life! Don’t get caught before I save you! Oki? Bye-bye!” He waved energetically before his entire body abruptly melted into a dark, empty splatter of black ink at her feet. He only heard the start of the rabbit’s terrified shriek as she scampered away from his puddle before the street was gone.

The dark liquid bubbled out between the cracks of the marble tile lining the floor a short while later. A golden antechamber with a high ceiling, towering stone-cut pillars and wide, stained-glass windows was the type of scenery many of his alternates would’ve loathed to find themselves in, but Ink figured he couldn’t’ve picked a better place to appear. The puddle of darkness seeped out of the ground unnoticed in the shadow of the very person he wanted to see.

_Finally._

“Hiya, Glitchy!” The unformed slimeball greeted with an enormous grin as he popped out of the ink directly behind his foe. He almost managed to grab onto his shoulder, too, as he energetically leapt forward in his haste to meet him, but the other was too fast.

The black skeleton jerked around, retreating just out of his reach. Shoulders bunched up defensively. A pattern of blue strings already woven between his multi-hued fingers. “F-f—fucker! I kne– _knew_ you’d come from behind!” His deep voice skipped around the wording in his usually flawed speech pattern, but the stutter shouldn’t be mistaken for fear or even surprise. His body language, tense and battle-ready, clearly read like he’d been expecting some sort of company.

His broken voice started to cackle ominously low as his yellow eyelights ran up and down the dark figure, re-confirming the inkblot’s arrival. The black liquid slowly faded from that figure’s form until the guardian’s colors returned to normal, solidifying into a clearer view, as he greeted the ebony skeleton with an overly friendly, energetic wave.

“You knew, did you? Were you maybe trying to reach me, Error?” He gestured to the blood red sky optimistically with finger guns, “There are easier ways to get my attention. I’d come see you, if you only aske—”

“Sh–Shut it, shit-stain,” The destroyer snarled over him, “You can drop the-the niceties. We both know I won’t fall for your poor excu-cuse of an act.”

Ah, Error _did_ know him so well! Ink blinked back with a wide, yellow-induced smile. Did this mean they were getting closer after all this time? “Are you impatient, maybe?” He suggested with a giddy chirp, rocking on his heels, “I know how you feel, buddy!”

“Someho-how, I _doubt_ that ver-ery much, _”_ The glitch growled unamused, snarling at his use of a familiar term, but—wisely—held his ground a few steps away, not dropping his impeccable guard one bit to the guardian’s charade. His fingers twitched around his strings, lightly testing the web that had been woven between all the grand pillars nearby. A mess of tangled threads that nearly blotted out the building’s toweringly high ceiling that spanned above them. It looked like a tangled knot to the untrained eye, but if Ink knew Error –and they’d had many such spats in the past—there was more method to that senseless madness than there seemed at a mere glance. Today, the destroyer had come fully prepped for battle.

“I’m excited for this fight, too!” Ink giggled back, “I missed you!”

Error shot him a furious look, clearly upset with this type of speech. As tempting as it was, he supposed it was rude to keep toying with him like this. After all, any good protagonist would definitely pick a fight with the villain who caused this mess. As fun as it was to indulge his favorite pastime of purposefully mismatching their moods; ripping a world apart to this sorry extent required a proper punishment for all the people Error had wronged. Ink tapped a more suitable vial on his sash, collecting two dabs of Red on his fingers.

“Gosh, It’s been so long, Glitchy!” He mused excitedly, “Ehe! I can’t wait!” He licked the crimson paint off his fingers. His smile fell, finishing the sentence with a jarringly foreboding, even tone that rumbled low with promised pain, “—to finally teach you a lesson, you thief.”

His once colorful eyelights settled on a red X and bullseye, face devoid of any hint of the former mirth as he glared daggers at the deadly world-killer standing across from him.

“There he is-is,” Error cooed almost happily, voice glitching through the words with an underlying thrill. His yellowed grin quirked high up one side of his face, “There’s the-e cocky, little shit-stain I kno-ow. Finally finished playing your mind-games, eh, _doll_?”

The soulless doll didn’t offer him any amusement back, instead his glare deepened dangerously at the provocation. Whether the glitch meant it as a stab at his lifelessness or at the destroyer’s own tendency to make dolls with the stolen dust of his many victims; it hardly mattered.

“I’m going to have to confiscate all your other toys for a joke made in such poor taste,” The guardian warned coldly, unlatching his trusty brush from his back. As much as he’d like to draw this out, this world was too far gone for play. Error needed to pay for his crimes here. Stealing lives. Stealing homes. Tearing someone’s precious creation apart at the very seams.

“I’d like to see you tr-try,” The black skeleton grinned, “This world-d’s already _mine._ ”

Void it was!

Ink lashed out at the vile claim, swiping his weapon high above his lifelong nemesis. He knew to aim for the strings first. Attacking Error without dealing with those eyesores first would be folly. If left unchecked, the creeping blue webs would overrun him in no time.

The splatter of ink that flew off his stroke coated most of the cerulean strings directly above the destroyer. A brief pause passed by. Then, the fluid sizzled, shifting into a clear solution as it burned through the strings with a dangerous crackle, snapping through the cords.

_Ssszz._

His newest trick. Courtesy of Sci-tale.

“Acid?” The glitch growled, jumping back to dodge the droplets that nearly landed on him, dripping down from high above. He wrinkled his brow ridge in disgust when the odor reached him, shielding his nostrils with a sleeve as he corrected, “Hydrofluoric aci-cid? Did you skip straigh-aight to the top of the—”

Ink didn’t give him time to analyze the substance further. With his opponent distracted, he’d rushed forward, closing the ground between them in the blink of an eye, drawing his massive weapon back for a brutal close quarters blow.

He’d finish him fast—!

His brush tore harmlessly through the air above the ebony skeleton, who’d dropped to the ground just as impossibly fast as the movements that his foe had used to advance. Evenly matched. No doubt using a tug from the strings Ink just now noticed tied around his ruby ankles to hit the duck at that speed—hold up, duck? He’d been expecting Error to dodge back with his usual escape through the air, swinging away on whatever strings the corrosive acid hadn’t snapped away. Not to duck under him.

Now he was close.

 _Very_ close. His glowing saffron eyes looked focused. Intense. The bone of the dangerous glitch’s multi-colored fingertips clinked against a vial on his chest before he was able to change momentum.

The guardian redirected the blow to circle back around with a second vicious swipe below him. He kicked off from the ground into an upwards flip just to spare those few extra milliseconds of distance to avoid the threat of his enemy’s seeking hand. The second blow didn’t land, but it successfully broke their entanglement. Ink landed safely on his feet a few steps away, unharmed. The guardian blinked down at his chest, hovering a hand above his ribcage.

That murderer had been… reaching for his chest. Error was? Error was trying to _touch_ him? _Voluntarily?_

Ink shook the thought off, trying to stay focused instead. He spun on cue, quickly swiping a line through the air behind him where he felt a predatory presence looming just beyond his back. A hastily drawn, fully-sized bus went flipping wildly out at the threat, yet, again, his paintbrush had just barely missed its prey. The vehicle instead crashed noisily through nothing, fazing through a few squared glitches left lingering through the air from the destroyer’s plague.

He caught a glance of the black skeleton just a few steps to his left instead, so he carried the momentum of his stroke through into a spin, hoping to catch Error with a vicious smack as the handle circled around.

However, several massive, bright blue bones burst from the floor first, knocking his swing high. Again, Ink felt his nemesis looming somewhere just behind his back. He didn’t bother to check if his instinct was right. He knew Error could teleport.

He didn’t look. The guardian grabbed the tail end of his enemy’s attack, which was still bursting from the floor nearby, and let it drag him up behind it. Its momentum carried him higher to a safer distance that was out of his rival’s reach. The guardian spun around again, riding his enemy’s weapon like a surfboard as he was launched upwards, throwing a splash of ink at his foe’s feet behind him. As if opening a portal to bone-town, his own jet black bones erupted from the creative stain; hundreds of bones consuming the glitch in one quick, machine-gun spray of projectiles.

He didn’t have time to see if Error escaped the blow because he heard the telltale whirr of a blaster charging up from both five _and_ eight o’clock behind him. With a flick of his wrist, the artist sent a priceless, stone statue hurtling towards the noise peaking around eight. A sharp crack signified he’d successfully taken out one blaster before it fired, but the second was more than ready to fire in its stead.

Tricky glitch!

The deadly laser blew a hole straight through Ink’s midsection, reducing everyone’s favorite hero into his mere namesake—Yet the blast not only exploded through his gut, but into the cyan bone behind him. Colliding with something _actually_ solid; the deafening _boom_ caught the rest of Ink in the resulting explosion. Dissolved into a black liquid, the droplets containing his essence went flying off into different sections of the room with all the force of the recoil from the blast. His lifeless puddle splattered against the floor along with the shockwave of debris from the thunderous quake. Shattered bone fragments flying overhead.

The shape of the guardian slowly rose from the murky splash, forming as the silhouetted figure of a skeleton curled over on his knees. Okay. Ouch. Boy, did that sting! Someone wasn’t pulling any punches today. Whatever happened to the warm-up phase? It took a little longer for Ink to fully reform, since he had to replace the bits of missing ink that formed a hole in his midsection. Still, he was only down for a few seconds before the guardian pushed himself back up to his feet. Soggily stumbling backwards as his colors returned, trying to grasp the bearings of whatever light-forsaken spot he’d just landed.

He was met with an all too familiar yellow smile nearby. Right-in-his-face kind of _nearby_. He wasn’t used to Error fighting at such a short range! The jerk usually went out of his way to keep as far a distance as possible between them!

Ink swung a punch at his opponent, who only leaned away in a cockily casual manner to dodge the rushed attack, before he stepped in. _Closer._ Causing all the warning signals to fire off in Ink’s brain from that particularly odd choice from Error. Didn’t he hate physical contact? Why come into such close range of his enemy so willingly? Yet he found those dangerous, multi-colored fingers already reaching in towards his chest for a second time.

The guardian hastily knocked his opponent’s attempt away and they both nearly stumbled with how clumsily the movement was thrown—when, in an attempt to prevent his prey’s escape, he felt Error’s second hand grip tightly into the sash near the small of his back; ---Ink nearly lost his mind!

This was so unusual!!— _Stay focused, hero_!

Before he could lose his composure, Ink dropped them both to the floor, crushing the hand with his spine during a backwards roll as he kicked Error with all the force he could muster. The vicious, magic-charged kick launched the glitch off of him and across the room at an incredible speed—as if he were trying to chuck the world-thief back to the safety of the usual distance they kept between each other during a battle. Ink finished the backwards roll flawlessly, landing upright on his own two feet. His hand hovering over the place on his chest where Error had, once again, tried to grab. He could feel the empty, black void deep in his chest swirling eagerly beneath his ribs in anticipation.

“What-t’s the matter?” The deep, broken voice taunted darkly from only a few feet away; where the safety of a pre-rigged net of blue strings had already caught the grinning mastermind, “Having trouble keep-eping up today, scatterbrain?”

He was still close. Those saffron-like sockets staring him down smugly.

Seriously?! _He was still close! So, it wasn’t just his imagination_ —! The glitch _had_ done all this on _purpose_! Oh, wow!! Finally, a fistfight? With Error?! That was something Ink had always wanted to try!

The guardian’s hand quickly shifted from his chest to his mouth, trying to hold down the mismatching excitement now bubbling up within him past the haze of rage, but it failed to do him much good. It was already coming up. Thick, black ink dribbled past his fingertips as he expelled the unwanted buzz from his system all at once, vomiting excitement all over the floor.

This was _way_ too unusual! Ohgosh! He’d _never_ done this before! Error was always full of new surprises, wasn’t he?! That’s why he was such a fun rival! He’d only been joking before about ‘calling’ him, but that’s technically what he did here; wasn’t it?! This was all staged! Glitchy had set up a whole meeting for them –just to see _him?!_ To fight with him? What prompted a fistfight of all things?! Had Error actually _missed—_

“Gross.” Error supplied unhelpfully, hovering over the puking form. “You’re dis-disgusting, squid.” He took his opponent’s brief incapacitation as an opportunity to casually draw some more strings from the depths of his sockets to replace the one’s he’d lost earlier, skillfully re-weaving the web between his fingers.

Ink swiped the back of a fingerless glove across his dirty teeth, the acute focus of red slowly returning to the edges of his vision. Ugh. He hadn’t had to puke his excitement out like that in a long time. He hadn’t had a good fight with anyone as crafty as Error in a long time either… Unfortunately, the glitch had just dropped off the map after their last match. He couldn’t remember the details of what it had been about exactly, but he’d even kept a tally on his scarf of all the days Error had gone missing afterwards. It had been _forty-five days_ without a single peep from the little recluse. He’d actually started to consider that maybe he’d hurt more than just the felon’s pride, but _nope._ Seems he’d just been scheming something big this whole time in revenge.

And just because he had a bone to pick with _him_. He’d shattered these innocent people’s homes into such a horrific state. Hundreds of people might not survive today. A whole world might blink out of existence! The guardian shot a sharp glare over to the occupied destroyer who was humming as he knit his evil web together like none of that even mattered.

Ink sneered at him with a low growl, regathering his will to fight. His rage. His wrath. He was a Guardian, for Void’s sake! This cocky, callous, little homewrecker had to pay—He swung his brush again.

This time, the ink that flew off the tip formed into various-sized shuriken. The razor-sharp blades sliced through the most recent rework of webbing the other had been repairing—purposefully aimed in a spiteful way just to tick the other off—but not one blade managed to hit the one who’d created those strings. Error had slipped away into a shortcut easily; blinking out of sight entirely.

His glitched laughter carried around the echoing chamber hauntingly. “You’ve real-eally been dropping-ng your game lately, squid,” The echo chided, “Is this the Guardi-dian of the Multiverse? What a wa-waste of my time to have gone through all this trou-trouble just for _this_.”

With rage-fueled vision, Ink scanned the area urgently for where the destroyer had exited his shortcut to. That slippery little brat. His inherently flawed voice mixed with the chamber’s natural reverberation made it hard to find him based on sound alone. So, even _the location_ of this encounter had been planned! When his shifting eyelights finally did land on the dark-clad skeleton smugly leaning against a nearby pillar, the glitch cockily tugged the string held aloft in his hand.

The unnoticed loop around Ink’s left foot cinched closed instantly, tightening harshly around the artist’s ankle. He only managed a frustrated grunt past his teeth before the trap yanked him high into the air. Webs of string flying past at an intense speed.

The guardian managed to skillfully deflect several fast-approaching wires with the help of his trusty paintbrush, but the higher areas of the ceiling were nearly blanketed in a thick, cyan weave. The trap dragged him by the ankle like a pinball thrown into the chaos of lines. A minefield of cheap blows. The taut wires nicked and sliced at his limbs as they whizzed past at intense speeds, yanking him left, yanking him right, up, down, around—until the ride finally came to a jarring halt across a tripwire that smacked him right in the gut.

The guardian nearly flipped head over the tense string before a second trap was activated a few milliseconds too late and a mess of string cinched in to capture their helpless prey in one big, tangled knot. The painful wires pulled tightly enough into their victim to cut deeply into the skeleton’s solid bones as the trap attempted to squeeze him into submission.

The only saving grace of this painful situation had been that millisecond of delay before the trap had sprung. Since now, the string, though nearly mummifying him around the middle, sat at all the wrong places for a perfect, complete hold on his limbs. He had a chance to escape as long as his legs hung free… Ink squirmed.

Okay. Nevermind.

Maybe he was completely stuck.

Error’s all too familiar cackle rang around the room, as the destroyer materialized nearby, lounging in the cascading loops of his own deadly string. “Pa-pathetic,” He mused smugly, “I’ve seen bet-etter fights out of broken co-code.”

“Really, Error?” The guardian grumbled through an eyeroll as he shot him an irritated look despite his current predicament. “ _This_ was all you wanted me for?” He sighed a bit disappointed, though he wasn’t sure what else he’d been expecting. “A trap? What good would catching me really do for you, huh, Glitchy? You know you can’t kill m—”

“ _I’ll tell you what it would do_ ,” The glitch hissed suddenly livid, drawing in dangerously fast to offer his newest victim a strikingly close view of the black skeleton’s vibrant eyelights. “I’m sick- _ick_ of seeing your stupid, smiling face everywhe-everywhere I go. Don’t think I hav-haven’t noticed that little stunt you always try to pull, Ink _._ You think you’re so clev-clever, don’t you? But you aren’t-t the only one who’s clever. You know, I’ve been-en watching you closely… Every time we fight you take a swig from that vial of yours. You’re reli-liant on it, aren’t you?”

He gripped his hand tighter into an angry fist with every word and, in kind, the trap squeezed audibly tighter throughout his speech. Creaking against the artist’s bones. Ink winced against the pain slicing through him from all sides.

“Was it a mana amp-amplifier? Was it a performance enhance-enhancing drug? The first time we met, I didn’t know. But now… now I do,” He leaned in extra close, whispering the words like a secret straight into his ear, “It’s a _bottle of pure Ra-RAGE_ , isn’t it?” His broken voice taunted, finger tapping against the red vial on his captive’s chest.

Ink blinked down as his wandering hand moved slowly down the line of containers to tap against the next glass. “This one’s _sadness_ ,” Error mimicked a mockery of the pathetic emotion, a cruel edge twisting his tone as he hummed each glitched word right into his captive’s ear. “…This one’s _joy_ ,” The glitch informed with a sinister smile, tapping his favorite yellow vial next. “But _this one.”_

The multi-colored fingers glided down to the end of the line-up, tapping against the lowest vial fixed to the guardian’s sash. Filled to the brim with a pearly white substance behind the clear glass.

“This one,” Error purred fondly, “I haven’t seen you use.”

His eyelights were shifting through too many shapes to settle on merely one as the artist looked back up at the ebony skeleton who pulled away from him with a crazed look in those saffron eyes.

“Aw. What’s wro-wrong?” The glitch asked with a widening cheshire smile, “Don’t tell me-me you don’t _like that_ emotion?” His nemesis taunted, “I though-thought _all_ aspects of life wer-were just _precious_ to you _.”_

“Error.” Ink started threateningly, fixing the ebony skeleton with a firm, warning look supported by the sharp, dangerously aggressive angles that his eyelights settled on.

“Ooooh. Don’t-on’t worry,” Error interrupted with a deep chuckle, “I know you’re not scare-ared of this… _not yet,_ ” He added the last words with a mischievous grin. “But, you kno-know, I’d love nothing more than to see that stupid face of your-ours cowering in front of me in pure, concentrated **fear.** ”

The glitch unhooked the white vial from his captive’s sash, taunting the bottle out of his pinned reach between those saturated fingertips.

“Error d o n’ t,” The guardian ordered darkly with no room for argument in the piercing gaze of his now cyan and red eyelights. “Think first. Even I know that you’re better than that. Forcing an emotion is wrong.”

“Wrong?” The skipping, broken laughter that reverberated off the halls was deafening.

 _“_ I’m your _enemy,_ Guardian _,”_ The destroyer reminded ominously, “I’m-I’m not better-etter than any- _anything_! It’s this self-righteous expre-expression of yours right here-ere,” Error snarled, grabbing his face roughly with his free hand to tug him forward, “That I truly _hate_.”

A series of glitches spawned across his fingers around the place of contact, but Error seemed determined enough, or angry enough, to grit through the discomfort. Ink was left speechless that this person, someone he’d known for so long to hate even the briefest moments of contact, would ever touch someone voluntarily himself. Let alone _him._ This was the first time Error had _ever_ tolerated physical touch on his own—!

Yet the more rational side of him knew there was a reason he was willing to put up with it. Some rationale that made enduring something he truly hated all worth it.

“Error, did I…” Ink started unsure, expression still grim, “…Did I do something to you?”

The jerk of surprise that flitted across the glitch’s expression was telling.

“I did?!” Ink blurted, a burst of interest welling up inside him. He did?! _Seriously?_ When?! What could he have possibly done? He felt like he was always so careful with Error. Sure, he liked to tease him at times, but to piss him off to this extent—He would _never._

That void in his chest was spinning wildly now, eager to figure out what exactly he’d done.

“What did I do?” He couldn’t contain his onslaught of questions, “When was it? Did it happen the last time we saw each other?! Error, believe me, I don’t remember if I did—”

“I _know_ you-you don’t, scatterbrain!” The destroyer tried to interrupt, but Ink’s mind was already whirling for an answer.

He didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary jotted down on his scarf about their last encounter. Nor the ones before that. Ugh! He really needed to start taking down better notes! Glitchy hated something enough that he’d put together an elaborate rampage like this in revenge? What could it possibly be about?

“—Did I ruin your favorite jacket? Ripped one of your dolls?! Did I poke you somewhere sensitive when you were off-guard or something?” A dribble of black ink began leaking down his chin as he rapid-fired off questions, eager to find the answer, his eyelights blasting through a series of stars. “Oh! I know! I actually managed to strong-arm you into a tickle-fight, didn’t I?! No? Maybe I told you a particularly bad joke? Nah, I’ve told you a lot of those already… Oh!! You finally found that picture I drew of you and hid in the anti-void, didn’t you—?!’

“Auuugh,” Error growled over his obnoxious curiosity, hands clutching his skull like he wanted to tear the guardian’s voice straight from his mind, “Shu- _shut up,_ Ink! It’s all-ALL of them! It’s all of your stupid antics _combined!_ I’ve had enou-enough of you! Always showing-ng up with your stupid rainbow smiles and your dumb-umb jokes and your fucking nicknames! Stop acting like we’re _FRIENDS!_ ”

Ink fell quiet as the other loomed over him ominously. Expression dark.

“Don’t think-ink I’m not onto you. I know you’re just toy-toying with me. It’s so FAKE it makes me want-ant to puke more than you-you do. Because no matter what stu-stupid nonsense you try to pull, at the end of the day, _I swear_ ; none-NONE of it will change an-anything between us. We’ll always be right back here, try-trying to kill each other the next day. You know why that is, sca-scatterbrain?

“ **Because I know what you are.**

“You’re no more than a shallow act of a person. You might be able to f-fool every-everyone else with your obnoxious, little side-show performance, but _I’m not amused._ I know-ow exactly what you’re up to. I know this is all just some big ga-game to you. So, I’ll only tell you once. Stop gree-greeting me with that phony grin-n of yours. Stop pointlessly dragging out our unfortunate enco-encounters so that we can ‘hang out’ together. And stop-op _acting_ like I’m _not_ the exact type of person that _you despise the most._ The only thi-thing we have in common is ho-how m-much we hate each other!”

“I don’t hate you, Error.”

His words seemed to rattle the other, whose sockets went wide. A glitch passed over his motionless form as a series of brief errors flickered across his vision. Then, a cocky, condescendingly sarcastic grin stretched wide across his yellow teeth, “What exactly are you tryin-trying to say? That you _like_ me? You think this is get- _getting along,_ you backwards freak?”

“Uh…”

“YOU TORE MY ARM OFF LAST TIME!” Error roared in his face. He held that glare for a long while, _daring_ Ink to try and refute, until the burst of rage settled out of his system. After a moment, he leaned back rolling his shoulder distractedly, “Took-k me for-forever to stitch the nerves back together wit-with only one hand…”

Oh. That happened, huh?

Ink grinned back sheepishly, trying to explain himself, “I meant, I’m physically incapable of feeling anything, Glitchy. You know that.” He knew he did. Error knew him better than anyone. “I _can’t_ hate you. I _don’t._ ”

 _That_ statement only seemed to irk him more.

“Yes you can!! Drink!” He ordered suddenly furious, throwing a doubly hateful glare down at the liar as he shoved the white vile right up against his captive’s tightly shut teeth.

“Mn—!!” Ink shut his eyes firmly, feet flailing through the air behind him as he tried to shake the attempt off without any words now to back him up.

“Com-come on,” Error taunted impatiently, holding the concentrated fear firmly against his hostage’s mouth, deviously adding, “Take a–take a sip, squid. Just one. Do it for you-your _pal.”_

 _Error just called him a pal._ Augh! He _really_ wanted to talk through this sudden development better. But he couldn’t get a word in if Error kept him silenced like this!!

Not to mention; the ever-building pressure of wires was cinching tighter _and tighter_ around him, matching Error’s ever-growing impatience with his stubborn resistance. Until the force finally became too much for even Ink to bear. He was torn. Quite literally. The strings ripped through their helpless captive before he ever got a word in.

Ink’s broken form slipped through the binding as a liquefied sludge, but he didn’t want to be separated. Not yet. He had too many questions.

_Why was Error mad?_

It didn’t make sense.

_If they were enemies—_

_If they “hated each other”—_

He reformed himself as quickly as possible, twining an inky, still-forming hand around one of the glitch’s blue strings to catch himself before he plummeted to the floor far below. He yanked his whole body up to the other’s height on his enemy’s own strings with an intense look set on his face. Eyelights a vibrant diamond and spinning flower as he leaned in urgently, blurting:

“Error, DID YOU MAYBE THINK THAT WE WERE FRIENDS?!”

Startled by the doll’s overbearing excitement, the ebony skeleton thrust the vial in his face like it were a holy ward against evil or other soulless demons. But Ink’s hands were free now, so he opted to dangle by only one arm as he simply plucked the vial out of the other’s hand with one of his own.

“Is that why you’re mad?” He pressed with an intense curiosity, grin jeering, “You wanted to be _friends?”_

Error snatched the stolen vial back just as quickly, clutching it like a lifeline against his chest. “Were you list-listening, at all?” He shot with a vicious look, “I said we are NOT friend-ends.”

“Then; what did I do?!” Ink asked, peeved. His excitement dipping so abruptly that the effects of the red paint began to seep back into his actions, eyelights shifting towards crimson. He tried to retrieve his vial, but Error held it out of his reach, leaning back far on his threaded swing to avoid the other.

“YOU EXIST!” Error roared at him, offended.

“WELL, I DIDN’T _ASK_ TO EXIST!” Ink shot back just as outraged, fully in the grip of Red once more. He stepped a foot onto the loop of the other’s swing as he pursued his stolen paint, reaching over the other. “YOU THINK I DREW MYSELF INTO EXISTENCE?!”

“Excuse me? Di-didn’t you _just_ do-o that?” Error sneered, leaning back so far he was hardly in his seat anymore just to keep the vial away from its proper owner as he snidely suggested, “If you dis-If you dislike existing so much, why don’t yo-on’t you ever let me help you-u with that problem, huh? Stop-op coming back!”

“DON’T GIVE ME THAT SPIEL AGAIN!” Ink hissed over him. Steadying the swinging seat as much as he could, he pulled his second foot onto the glitch’s makeshift chair as well, so he was now looming over the thief. “Why do you hate me so much? YOU HAVE NO REASON TO!”

“WERE YOU NOT-OT LISTENING WHEN I SAI-SAID YOU _RIPPED MY ARM OFF_?!”

“I’M ABOUT TO RIP IT OFF AGAIN IF YOU DON’T HAND OVER MY PAINT!”

Ink practically climbed over the glitch trying to retrieve his possession, but Error dangled the bottle further out of his reach, slipping out of his string to merely an arm and one leg hooked over the shared loop as he used his other foot to push the furious guardian off him with a shoe. “Would yo-would you get off alre-already? You aren’t getting it-iT back! Just make yourself more!”

If Ink could simply _make_ more; he wouldn’t have to travel across dimensions stealing the stuff!

“Alright.” The soulless doll stated, deadpan serious, as he pulled himself back up to stand ominously over the dangling black skeleton. He unhooked the red vial from his sash and popped off the top threateningly. “You’re asking for it now.”

A little more red paint in his system would convince Error to change his mind.

He’d nearly gotten the vial to his teeth, when spiderboy jolted upright with the help of his strings. He practically tackled Ink backwards, luckily landing in the former prison of strings nearby where the two of them tangled among the loops of threads.

Error first pinned him with his own weight— _bmp!_ —which felt like a hefty punch to his gut, followed by a sputter of deafening beeps— _eerrrnnBRzztRrzztRrt_ —but the glitch quickly managed to put as much physical distance as possible between them by ensnaring the guardian with more looping threads to yank them apart. Yet, they were still sharing the same supporting strings. Even now, trapped in this insidious knot, Ink was probably closer to Error than he had ever been in his entire life! He might’ve been able to appreciate the absurdity of it all if they weren’t now wrestling over the fate of _two_ precious vials of paint.

If even one priceless drop was spilled in this mess, Ink was going to— “n _Mn!_ ”

Puppeteering the strings like a slipknot, the stubborn glitch forced his head back with a jerk, pressing the white dye fiercely against his teeth again, shapeless fuzzes flicking across his opponent’s dark frame in a captivating wave of static, “We’ll seE-e if you’re so damn haughty with the wron-wrong paint in your system!”

Ink growled in defiance, keeping his mouth firmly shut as he struggled for a good hold to push the other off –all while holding the open red vial above their swaying heads, trying to prevent their struggle from spilling the priceless liquid. He bucked and kicked, but Error was hardly shaken off of his own strings. Every movement just seemed to tangle him more! He was losing mobility! Before his one, free hand was trapped for good in that knotted prison, the artist quickly resorted to the help of his trusty weapon.

Straining his limited grip, Ink drew his ever-faithful paintbrush from his back. With as much motion as he could manage, the guardian cut a wide, fierce stroke above him, the black magic of creation flicking off the end of the bristles, forcing Error to, at least temporarily, back off.

The glitch merely leaned away to dodge the sure miss, refusing to let up on his pinned hostage. He was back on top of his prey within a second, crowding the struggling victim like a hungry spider, tightening his hold, jostling the crimson vial in Ink’s hand dangerously, as if he hadn’t even registered the last-ditch attack. “Err—”

That one word of warning was all it took.

A splash of white paint slipped down the back of his throat. Ink’s sockets went wide.

_The rage was gone._

His whole body tensed stiffly beneath the other as a new emotion gripped him _hard_ in its place.

The destroyer drew back laughing victoriously. His glitchy cackle echoing to the far corners of the massive chamber. “You shoul-you should see your _face_ right-t now _._ Fear looks-oks good on you, squid! _”_

“erRor…” Ink managed to squeak out as his pupils shrunk to two horrifyingly small pinpricks as he stared straight _past_ the black shadow of a skeleton looming high above him.

“Oh man. This-is is too good!” Error snickered to himself, wiping away an amused tear at the corner of his socket. Yet the glitch froze, expression abruptly falling flat, when he heard a familiar sizzle rising from somewhere high above him. He finally turned to see the same thing Ink was looking at.

_Sssszzzz._

A great, long streak of jet-black ink had been messily drawn across all the strings overhead in a wide, all-encompassing arc. The black magic of creation was dripping and oozing down the once neon nest of cords. But the safety of that dark, unformed hue was already fading away into a clear, pungent liquid. A sinister sizzle hissing fiercely from the spread of wires as the summoned acid corroded through them each like paper. There was a sharp, reverberating _snap_ as the loop of string holding them up gave way.

Into a freefall.

All the other strings that might’ve become their rescue severed damningly around them in a rippling cacophony of echoed _snaps_ — _snap. SNAP!_ Ink found it hard to keep his head on straight in the unwinding chaos.

They were airborne.

They were falling.

They were tumbling over each other in a mess of limbs and tangled thread. Flipping through the air like a pinwheel with a strong gust. Scrambling for anything to grab. He didn’t know when, but he knew he lost his vial somewhere in that knot of madness. He heard Error shout—something—at him through the fall, but he couldn’t make it out. Unsure if his voice had glitched out to inaudible levels or if he simply couldn’t hear him over the whirlwind flying past. His fists gripped tighter into the other as the world spun around them. Cartwheeling wildly over one another. The ground fast approaching. And all Ink could think of in that last millisecond was that the glitch wasn’t capable of fazing through the impact.

“ErRO—!”

His own body hit first; _skull first—_ splattering into a flat, lifeless blot of black ink against the tile floor. A limbless, sightless abyss of black nothing. Not even whole enough to serve as a cushion to the other’s fall. Behind him, Ink only heard a bone-crippling _shatter_ ring out amid the darkness.

When he finally came to, Ink struggled to pull himself out of the sticky darkness he’d become. Reforming was always unpleasant. Not only was it painful; but losing his body felt like losing the one and only connection he had to life. The hollow sketch hacked on the bile of the taste his own ink left in his mouth as it coated its way down the inside of his nonexistent throat, redrawing the once lost image. He sucked in a few shaky breaths, hands quaking against the solid floor, until the color drained back into his being.

He looked around, now terrifyingly alert, with sunken, flickering eyelights fighting to reignite in the depths of his sockets. Only one question was pounding through his mind in the empty silence of the massive chamber.

“Error…?”

His frantic, searching, pulsing eyelights finally landed on the ebony skeleton who was lying motionless on his side merely a few paces away amongst a sea of blue, severed threads and flecks of shattered glass.

“Error!” Ink cried. Failing to stand up on woozy legs, the guardian crashed back to the harshness of the floor, but that didn’t stop him from dragging himself over to his fallen friend. “ _Error!_ Hey!” He shouted panicked, shaking the unresponsive form.

He didn’t look good.

No. He looked awful.

His head had clearly taken most of the impact. An excess of cracks spread out from a nasty hole in the back left of his skull. Blood pouring out of the many deep gashes. All of his limbs were limp and twisted. The way his side dented around the floor suggested a broken rib, too. An excess of frazzled glitches spiking off the static form.

“Don’t do this to me, Glitchy,” Ink pleaded as he rolled the skeleton over to get a better look at his face, but more crimson blood only poured from the corner of his mouth past the visible glitches. A sure sign of internal trauma from somewhere within. Was it from the blow to the head? Or the shattered rib? Or _some other injury somewhere?_ —“Be okay. Please be okay—” His eyes roved over the unconscious monster, looking for any sign of life. Trying to check for any significant impacts other than the broken skull and rib, but his vision was already frantically blurring. “Please, _Glitchy_ —please, please,” His voice quivered, digging his fingers tightly into the motionless form’s jacket, but not even that brazen form of contact seemed to garner a response. “Why didn’t you use a shortcut–?”

As if someone flicked on a switch to his power supply, Error jolted upright, hacking and coughing up shards of glass and spurts of blood.

“Error?!!” Ink shrieked. Thrilled to finally see him move.

The ebony skeleton flinched sharply—either from the volume or the pain—his hand quickly flying to the back of his head. Yellow-tipped fingers prodded around the newfound hole. With a grimace, he drew the hand back in front of him smattered in blood. Only taking a moment to process the obvious facts together. His saffron eyes, now closer than they’d ever been, flicked over to Ink’s with a deathly cold chill in their depths.

“LoOK WHAT You-yoU _DID!”_ Error roared with unrestrained fury, violently ripping a string from the depths of his sockets. In one quick move, he deftly slung the line around the scatterbrain’s neck, letting them cross, and skillfully caught the other end. Then, he pulled the makeshift noose taut between his two bloodied palms. In an instant; the sharp wire dug into Ink’s throat with a vice. Squeezing the vertebrae so tightly the bones creaked dangerously under the force.

“Try and crash-ash me—!” The assaulter snarled as he stood, kicking out when he rose. His foot landed squarely in the center of the artist’s chest, knocking the breathless skeleton backwards as the destroyer stepped onto his ribs; effectively ramming his victim’s skull against the hard-tiled floor while Error tried to crush him beneath a vengeful foot.

“I KNEW yOu’d trY-TRY to KiLl mE!” The glitch bellowed, looming over his suffocating victim. Voice scratchy and harsh. The wire cinching tighter and tighter around the other’s throat. “If you want-ant a deathmatch; then FINE! **I’ll taKe thE WHoLe MULTIVERSE DOWN WItH YOU, Ink!** ”

The guardian fumbled at his throat for a hold on the string, desperately trying to free some air so that he could speak. Eyes wide in alarm. He’d seen Error mad—really mad—but never like _this_. He was _furious_. Saffron eyes wild and unfocused around fuzzy, unshaped irises. Their amber hue blazing with fierce magic. The dark skeleton leaned predatorily over his trapped prey, foot pressing down steadily with more and more force in an attempt to crack straight through his ribcage. They’d been locked in some severe struggles together in the past—but this was different. This was _wrong._ His lifelong nemesis leaned over him with the most hateful sneer upon his mandible. A few streaks of blood leaking from between his glass-ruined teeth as the liquid dribbled off his chin. Red droplets splattering against the ivory cheek trapped helplessly below that unrivaled fury—and only then did the artist recognize the hue.

That wasn’t blood on his teeth. That was…

_Paint._

He felt like his mind had been waterboarded as the absolute worst possibility presented itself. All the air slipped away from him steadily as he tried to come to terms with that horrifying idea. Error on paint? Error on _red_ paint? That couldn’t be any worse! But he couldn’t think of any other explanation for this either. A missing vial. Glass in his teeth. Red streaking down his mouth; yet with an impact on the _back_ of his head. The destroyer had—He’d ingested it!

 _Pure RAGE._

But how much? How much had he—?

“err…” He wheezed the other’s name, a hollow dread growing thick in his chest as he writhed beneath his assaulter, trying pitifully to break free of the strangulation.

Error stomped on his chest and Ink swore he heard a few cracks give under the blow. It was brutal. Violent. Frighteningly cruel. When his foot came down for yet another, ruthless blow, it went straight through his liquefied ribs like water. Ink’s whole form splattered into a lifeless smear across the ground beneath the impact.

The guardian’s blackened silhouette rose from the puddle behind the destroyer before the glitch had even regained his balance from losing the thing he’d been stomping on. Ink threw a headlock around his would-be killer’s neck long before his colors even reformed, before he could even think about how scared he was—how scary _this_ impossibility was—he wrestled the berserk skeleton to the floor as a mere silhouette.

“Error!” He shouted the familiar name over the rabid, hostile snarling that intimate of a move kicked up in return. The other spasmed under his weight, glitching profusely, “Error? Talk to me! I need you to tell me exactly what you swallowed!”

He tried to keep the distress out of his limbs to prevent his arms from shaking too badly with nerve. It was hopeless. His hold trembled anyway when, instead of an answer, his fears were confirmed when the snarling below pitched into nothing more than a dial tone and a feral, unintelligible static.

What had happened? Had he lost his mind? What if the paint had permanently damaged him, staining his soul in rage? How could he possibly fix it if that were the case? _What if he never got Error back the way he was before?_

He’d never had a living being drink his paint before!

No, maybe—Maybe he’d given a drop of yellow to Dream before when his friend had been in trouble once? He might have a memory like that rattling around somewhere in his brain. But Dream was different! He was made entirely of positive emotions! A conduit of positivity!—Error was—Well, maybe they always fought and he was usually pissed off by the time Ink found him—But, Error was a lot more than just his _rage_ —Ink knew!—Error had fears and ambitions. He got bummed out or annoyed. He laughed.— _He was a whole spectrum_ —Error was more complex than merely some nameless villain with a sour temper!

The form in his grasp went completely limp under his constrictive hold. The once piercing static of slurred insults cut off just as alarmingly quick as his opponent’s sudden lack of movement—sans a hint of life.

Utter stillness.

“…Glitchy?” Ink’s voice wavered, afraid he’d squeezed the other’s throat too tightly in the headlock.

Horrifyingly; there wasn’t a reply.

Oh no. Oh no! He didn’t want to hurt him. That was the opposite of what he wanted to do here! Was he really that injured from the fall? The guardian loosened his grip enough to peek over the motionless skeleton’s shoulder to urgently check his vitals.

**E ~~R~~ ROR – ** ?ATK ?DEF

 **He ~~’~~** **~~s~~ sic ~~k~~** **of do ~~i~~** **~~n~~ g this w ~~i~~** **~~th y~~ ou.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho, man. The chapter creep is real. Someone send help! I have a problem; you could even say I'm _Addict_ ed?  
> *dodges tomatoes*  
> Enjoy the long chapter!
> 
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  
> Mandatory Recap:
> 
> Error and Ink's trapeze act didn't quite work out.  
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

**E ~~R~~ ROR – ** ?ATK ?DEF

**He ~~’~~** **~~s~~ sic ~~k~~** **of do ~~i~~** **~~n~~ g this w ~~i~~** **~~th y~~ ou.**

The destroyer’s eyelights were nothing more than unfocused, dancing static. His expression paused in anger. The faintest sound of a dial-tone playing between his slightly parted teeth. He looked like he’d completely frozen—

The other gasped back to life. His whole system rebooting with the sharp intake of air.

“I sai-said GET OFF OF ME-e, yOu WoRTHLESS SLUDGE!” Error roared from below with so much contempt in the phrase, every syllable rumbled forth with a deep growl from his very core. He elbowed the guardian sharply in the side.

And the floor tore open.

The curt motion simultaneously bursting forth nearly a dozen sharp bones from the ground directly below them. Like a launched spike-trap, each blast jutted up in the same direction the jab had been shot. Tangled as they were; Ink could hardly dodge. Several pierced the artist’s side, knocking him off the pinned skeleton with the pure force put behind the desperate attack. It slammed home with enough momentum to throw him off, sending him rolling across the floor nearly three yards away.

Forcing out the cry; “ _AHH_ GH!” _It hurt!_ These hurt! Like a recurring pulse of knives; these strange, static-ridden bones periodically sent a pulsing shock of mana jolting through him –It hurt so much! Searing. Suffocating even.

Ink writhed on the ground as he twisted himself to get a better hold of the ink-stained shivs, gasping in pain as he ripped out a few of the agonizing attacks that had lodged themselves deep into his ribcage before the blue and red flickering bones could do any more damage to him. Uneager to experience _that pain_ again, the doll panickedly stumbled off of his stomach and onto his feet. Instinct screaming at him to stay alert for any follow-up attacks. Or rather, if he were smart at all; to flee from this growing danger altogether.

The Destroyer was also staggering onto his feet a short distance away. Slowly. Hatefully. The ebony skeleton rose with a heavy snarl, eyes blazing fiercely in the shadows of his jagged silhouette as he ripped out the bones that had lodged themselves into _his_ side as well. Bones from his own attack.

Error had shot himself through the ribs just to get Ink off of him.

Any fleeting notion Ink might’ve had to flee fled him instead at that sickening sight. The gory scene alone almost made him light-headed.

His limbs felt too heavy to run.

His fingertips felt numb.

More importantly; Ink suddenly felt personally responsible for every new glistening splotch of marrow now staining through his enemy’s shirt.

The guardian had trouble getting his voice out across the now tensed atmosphere, eyes glued to those horrible injuries, “Gl-glitCHy, why would you…?”

_There were so many more bones riddled in him than the few that had managed to hit Ink!_

“—Don’t cal-CALL me _that!”_ The other snapped; the bloodied bone-attack in his fist splintered in half as he bellowed the words over the soulless being’s weak attempt at concern for him. The glitch tore a new handful of strings from his socket, readying the deadly weapons in his palm. “I NeVER sAID you-YOU could CALL mE-e that!” He ripped a second handful of strings from his other socket. Eyelights burning fiercely with a livid fire. “You don-don’t _DESERVE TO!”_

With one more jarring motion, he threw the strings forth at his own feet. The threads shot forward, cracking through the floor with all the force of a power-drill. The lines pulled out of his sockets rapidly like a fishing line that let its prey dive deep into the world’s depths. Strings pouring out of his eyes. Then, the black skeleton abruptly caught the right line of snagged wires and tugged hard.

The earth rumbled below Ink’s feet.

He had only that split second of warning before taut lines tore from the ground like an earthquake that had just split the world in half. The entire foundation of the floor shifting in a nauseating way. Frantic, Ink stumbled to the side in an attempt to dodge the unearthed string and the surge of broken tile and hefty rocks that rained down from around the torn land.

Error tugged the lines in his left hand.

The same monstrosity ripped from the depths of the ground on his other side. Taut wires breaking forth from the rocky earth to rise ominously high over the guardian’s head. Raining perilous rubble below. Destroying all the landscape in its wake. Ink fumbled on the shaky ground, struggling to hold his balance as the very world trembled beneath his feet. It was all breaking apart. He had nowhere to run. Nowhere to go. He had no choice but to stand his ground, helplessly batting aside fallen boulders with the handle of his brush, hoping not to get crushed beneath the rising devastation around him. Error at the helm, puppeteering it all with that menacing, wrathful look marring his features.

“Error, w-wait! You drank my paint—!” Ink tried to scream over the thunderous rumble of the world ripping apart below him that sounded so much like the deep, hateful growl rising within the destroyer’s own chest.

If the destroyer could hear him, he certainly didn’t acknowledge it. Error was well beyond simply talking. The mere second Ink reached a hand out for him—even though he was far too many yards away to make any real contact—Error threw a hailstorm of massive attacks down at his nemesis. Enough to practically build a wall of bone between them.

_THUD._

The rules were clear. There would be no more approaching the skeleton anymore.

The guardian could only retreat, stumbling back to dodge bone after hurled bone that _thunk_ ed into the ground where he’d just stood. Barely outstepping each menacing, wrathful attack. Yet every clumsy step placed him further and further away from the problem. The enraged skeleton couldn’t be reasoned with. Not in a state like this!

But Ink knew ‘the Guardian’ would have to put a stop to him or else this world was as good as doomed!—Yet he didn’t _want_ to fight Error! He’d only seen that injury for a moment, yet—!

He felt his chest sink further when the imposing shadow of a blaster loomed over the last bone-attack he’d just narrowly dodged. A blazing beam of magic already charging behind its black-charred bone. A familiar hateful red and yellow pattern flaring beneath its open sockets.

His breath caught. He needed to run. Leave. He couldn’t fight him. He had to _run_ —But, that injury had been so gruesome; a scatterplot of crimson holes grafted through his chest. He couldn’t just leave Error behind in a state like that—NO! He **refused to**!

Fighting against his own fear, Ink fell back from the fired blast, rolling to the side as it burned a dark line through the floor. Off balance, he scrambled on hands and knees out of the way when more bones _thunk_ ed ruthlessly into the tile behind him. The attacks firing mere milliseconds apart as they stalked his every movement. They almost caught him. He barely clambered onto his feet between two crossing beams next. He couldn’t keep dodging this way! He couldn’t do anything this way! Stumbling, the guardian frantically clutched at his line of vials, fingers instinctually grabbing for the power to retaliate. The very will to fight!

He clutched at nothing.

Ink froze. He didn’t have Red anymore.

What was he going to do if he didn’t have his red paint? Error was right! He always relied on rage’s obstinate focus and brutality to carry out any violence –and with a job like his; he’d always kept a healthy supply on hand. But now he had none. _None._ How much did he have on him before the vial got shattered? _How much_ rage had Error just swallowed?

Running, he fumbled for the next best option.

Sure, some amount of Red might be dribbling down the glitch’s chin right now—the guy had woken up hacking it out too—but Ink had nearly a full vial on him! Which meant Error was under the influence of _how much_ rage?! No wonder he’d been so reckless! He’d outright harmed himself! _Impaled_ himself even! Stop panicking! The paint was out of control. His hands were shaking too terribly to free his next vial. If he couldn’t get it together fast—if Error kept impaling himself haphazardly—he might even—

He took a sip from Green.

_Everyone_ might die. So, if Ink didn’t want that to happen; he’d better fix this mishap soon.

His eyelights settled into pale orbs.

With a clearer head, Ink easily side-stepped the next onslaught of bones that _thunk_ ed into the ground where he’d stood only a moment before. Without the panic narrowing his vision, the artist could see the pattern of attacks much more clearly. He side-stepped the line of a blaster beam here, then a series of bones would try to chase him towards the blaze’s next path. Rinse and repeat. Easy enough. He stayed light on his feet, his scarf dancing in tow like a ribbon behind him, as he dodged the assault pursuing him. Always prepared to move at a moment’s notice.

Simple.

He smoothly skipped backwards between a few more stalking bones that chased him across the floor, rhythmically punching holes into the stone tile behind him with resonating _twack_ s. Now in better control, the guardian began to steadily shift the battle to curve around the literal wall of bones standing between him and Error’s location. His footwork criss-crossing skillfully around each lethal attack that came hurtling his way. He almost cleared the wall—when a wire burst below his feet like a landmine, sending rubble shrapnel flying viciously in every direction from the new hole drawn through the world. Ultimately blocking his path.

No big deal.

He simply went around the other way. Treading more carefully this time as he made good leeway towards getting another view of his opponent. He finally made it around the obstruction of bones.

Yet the destroyer wasn’t where he was before.

That much could be expected. Error often slipped away when he was out of sight. It was far from unusual. Ink could find him. Knowing Error; it might take a while, though.

So, he patiently dodged, casually side-stepping the many dangers of the battle surging on the open floor, keeping his breathing calm and even despite the relentless onslaught. Despite every move being painstakingly interrupted, the guardian kept his pale eyelights focused. Steadily scanning around the large room for potential hiding places or possible retreats. Places where he might catch a glimpse of his recluse of an opponent once again.

_And…_

He dodged a bone that punched through the stone below his feet.

_The ceiling seemed clear…_

He ducked under a sizzling beam so concentrated that it distorted the air into a heatwave of sparks, forcing him to squint through the glare.

_Was that a trail of blood…?_

He backstepped, barely missing two bones that collided inches in front of his vision, splintering into a spray of needle-sharp shards.

_Found him._

Amid the pulse of action; he traced the trail to a flash of static midnight. The ebony skeleton was stomping furiously along the outer edges of the hallway past the towering columns. In one hand he held the small, familiar-looking doll of a rather handsome skeleton in a baseball cap. Yet his tri-colored fingers were deftly and meticulously unravelling the helpless puppet.

It might look like some senseless voodoo, but Ink knew from experience Error used the Sans-dolls to access the code at the core of an AU. Building one was a time-consuming process that cost the dust, soul-strings, and life of the local Sans in every variable of timeline that AU could potentially be. _Destroying_ that puppet took the whole universe down with it. Whatever code he was unravelling seemed to have taken the majority of the glitch’s attention, but his ability to multitask was on a whole new level.

Every few steps, the destroyer would stop, never ceasing his meticulous unweave of the doll as he ripped a new thread from his eye and threw it into the ground, all while calling down interval assaults at Ink’s location with that same hand—without even glancing over to check his aim. Then, he’d rip the string free of his socket the same moment the blaster fired at his prey, tying the broken thread off into one of the remnants of his once grandiose web. Connecting it all together again. Steadily repairing his former masterpiece that Ink had ruined with his acidic sludge. That ruthless, hateful sneer set on his mandible the whole while.

Ink smirked at the sight. _Of course, only Glitchy could do_ that many things _at once! A spider that didn’t need eight legs when he had ten fingers –and to think he wasn’t even using all_ ten _of them yet!—_ Ink wrestled down the spike of excitement that threatened to rise in his chest. He needed to focus.

Multitasking skills aside…

If Error already had a doll fully made, he was a lot further along in the process of destroying this universe than the guardian had initially thought. There were clearly destructive strings laced throughout this world. He’d wager the whole place had been booby-trapped long before he’d even gotten here. This AU wouldn’t survive the damage the glitch could unleash upon it _normally_. Any engagement _now,_ with that deadly doll in hand, was beyond risky.

Especially while Error was unstable on red paint.

Getting too close could spring that world-ending weave into action, so the guardian opted to keep his distance for once, patiently watching his foe repeat that same pattern of behavior several more times from afar. A clear connection appearing between the thunderous earthquakes that threatened his footing and that periodic moment when the glitch would spare to cast a line into the depths of the shuttering world.

He needed to close the large distance—nearly thirty yards!—that now sat between them. However, sneaking up on Error unnoticed was no easy feat under normal circumstances. Ink spared a casual glance back to the bones and blasters pursuing him; tearing up the ground in a mighty, unstoppable show in his wake.

Of course, it’d be impossible with _this_ noise in tow. There was no way he could shift the trajectory of the battle without Error noticing lazer beams and bone knives headed straight towards him. He had no choice but to wait for a better opportunity.

Ink was certain any good guardian wouldn’t allow this sort of mayhem loose on an innocent world—the literal ground was quaking and groaning from its very core beneath him. However, letting his approach be known would wreak even more devastation upon this AU. Waiting was the wise decision. A practical decision. Error already had this world rigged to blow, Error already had a doll made, yet… he _hadn’t_ torn the world apart prior to accidentally ingesting Ink’s red paint? Prior to Ink even arriving?

Was that practical?

There was no way it was. This world was already so far gone when he’d arrived. Error could’ve torn this place to smithereens long before Ink had ever figured out it was even in danger!

That was…

Again. That train of thought made it seem like Error really had done all of this just to meet with him.

He’d seriously _waited_ for him then?

_Error_ had.

So, the glitch had wanted to see him? Badly enough that the Destroyer of Wolds had held off on destroying a world? How long had he waited around for Ink to finally show up for him? Did that mean that Error had wanted to talk to him? Maybe even _peacefully?!_

What if Error had _only_ tied him up before because he’d wanted to _talk!?_

_To think_ —a chance to meet Error without it coming to blows!!

Ink nervously swallowed the thick blackness beginning to build in the back of his throat at the many possibilities that train of thought opened.

Whoa- _woah!_ Wouldn’t that be new and _fun_? But Glitchy never wanted to hang around and just chat when Ink tried it. It never worked out! But if _he_ were the one who started it instead, then—Does that mean if the red paint hadn’t gotten in their way; he could have hung out with Error today _?! Ogosh!_ If that was what happened, if they’d had that chance, maybe, just maybe, does that mean that he and Error could actually be frien—

_—_ Suddenly, the next line the destroyer tied off into the web; he pulled.

Twisting.

A near instant spike of screams from the strings’ distant victims rose to join the deafening rumble of the world, interrupting Ink’s ridiculous, little fantasy. Cries and shrieks arching up into that symphony of death Error was so artfully conducting. Their long, drawn-out pain echoing down the halls so loudly that Ink could hear them even from where he stood, without even one of those victims in visible sight.

An entire, screaming world echoed through his traitorous thoughts.

The Guardian wiped away the black staining his mouth.

Whoops. Waited too long. Green had its advantages, but he supposed calm patience was a double-edged sword when on such a short timer. Strange, though. If there was that much screaming; that meant Error’s web still wasn’t done yet. It should be too soon for him to pull that particular thread.

This wasn’t like him. Error didn’t like to leave messes. If Error attacked something seriously there wasn’t even a peep; just _nothing._ Absolutely nothing. This just seemed sloppy. Error wasn’t like all the other villains that preyed on the Multiverse. Error never dragged his attacks out. Sure; it took a lot of setup, but, typically, Error held his victims in his web, trapped, but unharmed, until he knew he had enough magic in his strings and enough of a hold on his prey to end them with one fell swoop. Quickly. Like popping a balloon. Error didn’t seem to desire to torture his victims in the way that Nightmare’s gang did. Error simply wanted them gone. Erased.

This behavior wasn’t like him at all.

With a world of tortured screams ringing in the distance, Ink cut a beeline for the skeleton that now had his back turned, skipping over uprooted ground and under a deadly beam of light as he methodically knocked the pursuing bone attacks out of the way with slashes from his trusty brush. He even hopped over a few strings mid-sprint that erupted beneath his feet when he nearly closed that lengthy distance. Focused. Eyelights never straying from the back of that dark figure.

There was only one thing a Guardian _could_ do right now.

This had to stop.

Murder was an unforgiveable sin! So _murder_ was off the table. Because that wasn’t what a good protagonist would do, right? Maybe they weren’t friends. Maybe they weren’t even on good terms. But if he was truly a “Protector” of the Multiverse, a Guardian of Life itself, then that protection should extend to Error as well!

His best shot to save this place would be to stop the effects of the paint coursing through his system. They’d been rivals for so long now. He knew his opponent wouldn’t be doing it like this if it weren’t for the paint. This reckless, haphazard, unfinished sort of destruction—It either existed; or it didn’t. There was no cruel, bloody, torturous in-between.

Error wouldn’t want it like that.

Ink didn’t want _him_ like that.

His fingers finally caught the back of the glitch’s blue hood as he ripped the destroyer away from that deadly wire—“ _Brace yourself_ —” The Guardian warned as he hurled the startled skeleton around himself in a full circle before slamming him face-first into the wall with all his strength. It cracked under the force, surely imbedding his features into the wall, but Ink didn’t stop to check out his new mold. He yanked the destroyer out of the cracked stone by his hood, tackling him to the floor—the moment he really needed Error to brace for.

Contact.

He fell on top of the glitch, wrestling his arms into submission while he could still use the element of surprise to his advantage. They tangled in a flailing heap of twisted limbs and cusses. “I-i-I- _Ink!_ ” Error howled, voice skipping as he thrashed, “I’ll KILL you-ou if you DON’T get-et your FILTHY HaNDs—!” Ink _almost_ managed to trap him when an unexpected blaster rose to its master’s aid. Looming ominously just off to the side of the two struggling forms. The glare of a lethal buzz rising fast behind its fangs as the massive form threatened the two silhouettes of the tiny skeletons pinned in a tangled heap before it.

He wouldn’t…

_Leave it to Error to be unpredictable._

He was.

Ink was forced to roll them _both_ out of the blast that tore up the ground they’d _both_ been on; to save _both_ their bones from being incinerated into nothing more than mana-charged air. He nearly succeeded but, the roll trailed a leg from each of them. The limbs disappeared behind the opaque, crackling surge that hissed out from the sinister maw. _Ink’s_ foot merely splattered to a malleable puddle around the potentially devastating injury. Ready to reform. But, Error’s—

“ _GAHgh!”_

His foot was gone from the knee down.

Figures. Ink had certainly tried, but what did Error expect aiming a weapon like that at himself? He wouldn’t’ve gotten hurt in the first place if he aimed those attacks of his more responsibly to begin with. That was the _second time_ he’d turned his own weapons against himself. Which...

He _was_ being uncharacteristically reckless right now. He was… But a risky accident like that? From _Error_ of all people _?_ The scheming mastermind that meticulously planned out every detail of a staged revenge? _—_ Ink knew it was wrong—Error hadn’t aimed that attack on _purpose_ , had he? Did he seriously care more about Ink not touching him right now than he did about his own life?

Maybe he did.

The errors sparking across the other’s bones were _ruthless_. Flaring up at every, single, little place they dared come into contact with each other. The artist could even feel their shimmers wavering beneath the cloth of the other’s shirt when he rolled and sat his full weight across his opponent’s chest, trying to pin his flailing limbs into submission. He could worry about the glitches later.

He’d need his own hands free if this was going to work.

So, Ink slid his knees over the glitch’s upper arms, pinning each humerus under a leg. Ignoring the angry screeches and static complaints as he sat across his opponent’s upper chest. It left Error’s lower half free to thrash however he wanted, but successfully freed up Ink’s hands for what needed to be done. He unhooked the vial from his sash with an audible _pop_.

“I know you aren’t like this, Glitchy. This is a mistake—” He’d never given his paint to a being with a soul. He didn’t know how it worked, nor did he think it was safe, especially not in such large doses, but when _he_ was under the effects of paint; the only way to get rid of an unwanted emotion was to wait for the paint to wear off on its own… or to change it.

He didn’t have the option to wait.

He wasn’t some hypocritical fiend. He still thought forcing an emotion was wrong. But he didn’t know how much Red Error had taken. For him, the amount affected the emotion’s duration and intensity. But, for him, even _a single drop_ of another paint could override that in an instant.

He couldn’t be sure that would be the case for Error.

His own excuse for a ‘soul’ might be a blank canvas, but _Error_ had a real soul. Real emotions. Who’s to say how much rage he’d been experiencing _before_ adding nearly a vial’s-worth of the Red’s poison on top? As unsafe as the paint seemed, if he used merely a single drop to counter that sort of fury; it might not be enough. Using too little was simply too risky. Especially if Error was going to fire blasters at him whenever he got close enough to try this. This might be his only chance here. Ideally, he wanted to match the first dose.

But Ink was a _soulless_ being _._ Not a heartless one.

He pressed his favorite, most frequented, _Yellow_ vial against Error’s red-stained teeth instead. There was at least two-thirds of his most beloved emotion left.

He could only hope that was enough.

Much like he had; Error shut his mouth the second the vial touched his teeth. Stubbornly preventing a forced emotion from slipping down his throat. Ink couldn’t blame him for the defiance, but he couldn’t allow it either.

“—This is for your own good.” The guardian reached behind him, hand trailing lightly down his captive’s stained shirt. Then, with unsettling clarity; Ink dug his fingers jaggedly into one of the fresh, bloody injuries the glitch had impaled into his own ribcage. Phalanges twisting deep into the tender marrow.

Error shrieked in pain.

The guardian dumped the whole vial into his mouth, until the budding scream gurgled into bubbles in the back of the injured’s throat. He cast the empty glass away quickly. Shoving Error’s jaw shut, Ink forcibly clamped a hand over the struggling skeleton’s mouth below him, ready to hold him down until he could be sure he’d swallowed the paint whole.

It was several seconds of thrashing and angry murmurs until he finally heard the gulp.

The struggling form went unusually calm beneath him. Soon, he felt a wide smile stretch under his palm. First, a mere chuckle. Then, the ebony skeleton’s whole belly was rocking them both with deep, throaty, muffled laughter below the soulless doll.

Ink cautiously lifted his hands, freeing the other’s mouth as he eased away from the giddy skeleton. Carefully studying the shaking form and the wide, unnatural grin fixed across his yellow teeth.

“For my own—Ha!—For my-y own _good?!_ Don’t de-DELUDE yourself,” Error snarled the last words, sockets flaring dangerously, “I knew-ew—I fucking _KNEW_ we would end up—this is what you-u want, Ink. Heheh! Ha!” He broke again, laughing some more. Cackling like it was the best joke he’d heard in ages as he managed to blurt between laughs, “This is what _I wa-_ want _._ Heheh! I don’t want to be _‘_ _saved’._ Don’t you realize this is the-the kind of fight we need? Ha hah!” He covered his eyes, feet kicking in laughter as he howled in joy. “No more mercy-ercy. No more games.” He seemed enthralled by the very thought, “None of your goody-oody-two-shoes bullshit ru-ruining it!”

The dark skeleton rolled them over, pinning Ink instead. “That-at’s is how it should be. Just you-you and me,” He snarled gleefully, grip tightening around the guardian’s wrists with pure hostility. A dangerously crazed smile splitting wide across his face in pure, unrestrained delight, “Seeing who can bre- _break_ the other first!”

Ink merely blinked back. Well, this was not the reaction he wanted at all. Weird. He’d confirmed that he’d swallowed the yellow paint, too. Every last drop of it.

“So, you want to _fight_ now?” Ink stated blankly, tilting his head at the curious reaction.

“Of cour-COURSE I DO!” Error roared furiously, throttling the skeleton below him as he shook his clueless enemy violently by the front of his shirt, “ _This whole time_ —What do you thi-think we’ve been _DOING?!”_

Anger already? Had there not been enough yellow paint left to counter the other? But he’d confirmed that he had swallowed _all_ the joy whole. Even if the amount was wrong it should’ve lasted longer than merely a few seconds. It was _two-thirds_ a vial.

Ink was jostled—at least physically. Mulling over the paint’s effects instead, he’d failed to react to the violence being used against him, forcing Error to snarl ferally down at the prey who was so clearly ignoring him.

“Don-on’t tell me you’re _bo_ r _e_ d _al_ r _ea_ d _y_?” He nearly sneered at his unfocused opponent. A snide, yet deranged, smile quirking up one half of his face, “What? Heheh. Don’t you-u believe me? Has this ‘batt-battle’ of ours not been _serious_ enough to con-convince you-ou yet? Heh! You wan-want a more _serious_ attack to pro-prove my point?” His warning needled darkly.

The glitch rammed the guardian roughly back to the tiled floor, harshly enough to demand his attention this time.

“You-u think you’re _invincible,_ don-on’t you? HAH! Well, _I_ can put tha-that theory to the test.”

With those words; he roughly, yet abruptly, dragged the front of the artist’s shirt up, where it had been tucked down into his trousers under tight suspenders, bunching the fabric up at the very top of Ink’s chest along with his scribbled scarf. Exposing the lower half of his intricately tattooed ribs and the swirling mass of empty darkness below his ribcage. Even now; hints of stolen color were dyeing the edges, streaks of blues and whites with an occasional speck of yellow or red appeared; until they swirled down the drain into an empty blackness. A seeming liquid black hole in place of a soul as if it were constantly draining any emotion that may bubble forth.

Error’s other hand pulled back, looming ominously over the guardian’s hollow chest.

“Error…?” Ink questioned blankly, unfazed by the cool breeze on his now exposed bones, but the other didn’t respond. He looked focused, determined, hand spread ready like a puppeteer’s, yet there was no soul for him to manipulate. He could’ve sworn that Error already knew that much. This didn’t work on him. “You do know there’s nothing there for you to contr—”

Instead of summoning puppet strings to possess his non-existent soul; the poised hand shot out like a viper. The destroyer wasted no time sinking his hand up to the elbow in the swirling mass of black liquid past the soulless doll’s ribs. A line of errors sparking viciously around his arm where the two met. Ink shuddered involuntarily as the multi-colored fingers dipped deep into the dark void within his chest.

Uncomfortable was the only way to describe the sensation as the cool bone of the other searched around invasively in the vacantness within him. Even on Green’s unshakable composure, Ink frowned slightly at that odd discomfort, but he was far from panicking. Far from worrying. There was simply _nothing_ in there for Error to harm.

“Error…” He started calmly after a few awkward moments of nothing passed, reminding, “I don’t have…”

His words trailed off as Error pulled from the void one lone, gooey thread. Similar to the kind he’d seen drawn out of many of Error’s other victim’s chests—minus the lively glow—moments before those Sanses got turned into mere puppets, of course.

The glitch’s voice chuckled low, yellow eyes sparked with amusement, “I kn- _knew_ you weren’t empty in there. No on-ne’s made of nothing.”

For once the loudmouth didn’t know what to say to that. Ink’s eyelights were _stuck_ to that dripping, black thread.

“You redraw yourself when you splatter, don’t you? But if I delete the ‘creation’ part of your co-code. You won’t come back, will you?” He asked smugly, winding the ‘creation part’ around his middle finger. Ink _swore_ he felt the thrum of the cord somewhere deep in his core as the line pulled taut.

“I could just delete you, Guardian. _Permanently.”_ Error almost giggled aloud knowing that Ink couldn’t escape him this time, “Would that final-finally get it through that thi-THICK, fuCKing SKULL OF YOURS, Ink? That I’M-m NOT merely _PLAYING_ wiTH you—”

“Error, IS THAT—?!” Ink interrupted, meeting the destroyer’s insane glare with his own excited eyelights. Quickly flicking from dimmed pinpricks into bright, vibrant stars. “A _soul-_ string? I have one?! I really have one, too?!”

“No-o, you dolt. It’s a string of co—”

Yet, Ink almost choked on the well of darkness already surging up from his throat. It oozed from his mouth, hindering his many other inquiries, yet not quite stopping the floodgate of blurted questions. “How log did you know I hab one?!” He gurgled past the ink, spittle flying, “Thad is so cool! How did you figure thad out? _Wen_?! _Since when?!_ ”

“I just—”

“Does thad mean I have a soul? _Part of a soul?_ ” He gripped the glitch’s sleeve eagerly, tugging like a needy child, “ _Error?_ Is ther more in there? Could we knit them togeder to make a real soul if we found dem all? Would you be willing to help me do dat?!”

“ _Pffft._ Heh. Heh heh HEH!” Error started to laugh uncontrollably. He dropped his threatening hold on the front of the guardian’s scarf to stifle his own laughter, giggling into the crook of his own elbow. “Ha ha HAH! OH~ Of cou-course YOU wouldn’t be afraid!” He cackled wildly at the insane reaction. Laughing. He was laughing!

Then his shoulders slumped as he let out an angry huff, grumbling, “No _white_ left, huh _…”_

The glitch leaned back, head lolling to the side, to cast his sharp, annoyed glare at the shattered glass speckling the ruined floor. His expression rumpled in a way that could only be described as a pout, “An-and, _of cOuRSe_ , it’s all bro-broken now, too. What a wa-wAsTe of ti-ime this has been then...

“Oh well.” The Destroyer seemed to decide, turning his vivid eyelights back down to his prey with a sharp smirk. He wound the string tighter around his finger—and even Ink tensed, spine arching with the way the cord seemed to pull up at the very core of his being. Leaning down, Error’s voice purred, “Killing you is only going to be hal- _half_ as fun then.”

If they weren’t connected by the string, he might not have felt the way that Error’s hand began to tremble, seconds before that slick, black line to his core _snapped_.

The smallest sliver of the severed thread slipped away, disappearing quickly like a recalled line back into the void in Ink’s chest. Yet Error clearly pulled away a victor, a significant amount of the black string now coiled around his multi-hued hand. Leering down at his victim with an enormous, expectant, yellow grin.

…Nothing happened.

They waited, but, nothing happened.

“Ser-SeRiouSLy?!” Error roared, his expression falling flat. Shooting a hate-filled glare at the mess of string in hand and wrangling it for good measure, “Are you ki-KidDinG me?!”

Ink couldn’t tear his eyes away from the black string coiled around his hand either. The void in his chest was swirling so fast; it may as well have been a tornado at this point. His already enormous grin hitched even higher.

He wasn’t empty.

_Error said he wasn’t empty!_

“Can—Can I see that?!” Ink blurted through a gurgle of excitement, reaching for the other’s hand. Eyelights invested.

“n-No,” The glitch clipped out, jerking the coiled string possessively away from its rightful owner.

“Aww! Com’mon, Error!” Ink whined, attempting to prop himself up to his elbows as he gave his best pleading face, “ _Please?_ ”

“You _clearly_ don-don’t even need it,” Error spat out jadedly. Somehow disinterested in his ground-breaking discovery while simultaneously unwilling to hand it over. He sheltered it closer to his chest for no reason other than to spite the other, looking more than ready to fend off any attempts to take it away from him.

That didn’t stop Ink from reaching for it anyway. He missed his grab, catching the side of the destroyer’s evasive sleeve. So, Ink settled for tugging on the thief’s sleeve needily in complaint instead, “Unfair, Error! Don’t hog my soul-string for yourself!”

“—It-t’s not a _soul-string,_ you idiot! You-u don’t **_have_** a _soul!”_ Error slapped his hand off, indignantly stuffing the string out of sight into his own inventory, seemingly more to keep it away from the immortal Guardian than the item being something he actually wanted for himself.

Yet Ink, unfazed, turned his starry eyelights up to the other, unconvinced, “No, Glitchy! It’s gotta be a soul-string!” He insisted eagerly, grin wide and leaking, “I thin _g_ I _felt_ something then!”

“ ** _HAH._** ”

The laugh couldn’t be any dryer.

“You did-idn’t,” Error corrected irately, directing a frustrated sigh down at his completely unintimidated prey. Only glittering eyelights sparkled back like stars even after the vicious assault he’d been put through. Seeing the moment for threats or coercion had utterly failed, the destroyer begrudgingly began to slug his way off the pinned guardian with open disappointment. No longer willing to be within proximity of someone who was messily gurgling black fluid from the mouth.

“No, really! I _did_ feel a pull _._ So, it’s gotta be connected to—”

“ _Trust. Me. **Ink** ;_” Error snapped back harshly with distinctive words, his voice practically dripping with venom; “You’re as d-DEAD inside as they come.”

“But—!” Ink countered, sitting up abruptly in his seat. The jarring movement put them mere inches apart from each other. A move that nearly caused Error to fall over backwards, but he was caught when Ink unconsciously sought the front of the other’s bloodstained jacket, fingers digging into the damp fabric, preventing his opponent’s retreat. Too excited to notice his captive’s unease. “But you actually _found_ some’ding in dere so maybe—”

“L-Le-leT go!” Error jerked away from his sudden closeness. His nervous twitch summoning a multitude of blasters around the entangled pair. All pointed inward in a deadly display. Every crackling breath trained in on one, stubborn person—A clear threat to the skeleton who simply couldn’t be threatened.

“So, maybe, if we find more—” Ink pleaded with enthusiasm, gripping the front of his shirt tighter, as he wound both hands in an attempt to pull the other back hopefully.

“Qu-Qu1T iT-t, sQuiD!”

But Ink had already thought of a million possibilities.

“You could—”

“I’m noT-0t going to hELp you! I wan-ant to KILL you!” Error roared over him, enraged. His face twisting into sick laughter, “Ha-heh! Are you this dense? Heh. SeRiouSly? I _seriously_ wan-ant to kill you, Ink. But it keeps ending up a _draw._ _Hah_! Get it? Heh heh. **I don’t want you-ou around!** You just wo-won’t,” He swallowed down the laughs, ending with a forced growl, “ _LEAVE ME-e ALONE, WILL YOU?!”_

He shoved Ink off of him; yet, without a foot to balance on, he also stumbled forward with the hefty force behind the shove. The sharp punch to Ink’s chest was hard enough to spew some excitement from the guardian’s clogged throat. With a dark splatter of emotion staining his shirt and the narrow space now between them, the two both fell down.

Yet those three blasters had already begun their attempt to dislodge the too-clingy skeleton. As he propped himself off the floor; Ink could hear their telltale whirrs building to a deafening crescendo. Each charging a blast meant to kill something that wasn’t alive to begin with. Needless to say, they probably wouldn’t succeed.

But Error himself was cackling like a madman on his hands and knees right next to his own weapons’ target, head hung. A few specks of blood dripping onto the dark smear left on the floor beneath his wheezing, hole-ridden chest. “Heh heh heh! Are you so cl-clingy because you’re s-so _stupid?”_ He ranted with a near crazed smile, one bloody hand clutched to his head as if trying to understand Ink was a special headache all its own. “I swear it was-wasn’t just your soul—HAH! Your brain nev-never got finished eiTheR, did it?!”

The blasters were flaring obscenely bright now.

With that final trail of sludge dripping from his teeth; Ink only sobered from his prior excitement in time to realize Error was _too close_ to him for once. Ink wouldn’t be the only one caught in this lethal tri-blast –and it wasn’t like the destroyer would be able to stand on that half-incinerated foot of his. There was no way he was going to survive another self-inflicted blow.

Worse. He didn’t even look like he was _trying_ to survive it.

Ink might not normally care about getting incinerated by three blasters—but he did if Error was still in his _lap_!

The Guardian retaliated with a speed he didn’t know he had, consecutively smashing three bone attacks through each of the mounting dangers almost simultaneously. The first blast got knocked to the side; its deadly, earth-shattering ray tearing easily through the pillars and the intricate stonework wall beyond as its aim spun wide. The second danger Ink managed to impale perfectly through the center, so he flipped his blaster-on-a-stick to fire completely in the opposite direction of its potential victims. The third black bone knocked its target upwards, launching that devastating blast straight through the ceiling looming high above them.

Which couldn’t be good.

Predicting the impending peril, Ink hurled himself forward into danger with the type of unfaltering composure only Green could provide. He managed to barely scoop his still-giggling enemy up in time as he dragged them both out of the way of the falling debris. Error’s taunting, jilted laughter hitched instantly as arms circled around him.

In fact; his whole form jolted unhelpfully stiff against Ink’s hold, forcing the Guardian to drag him along in a fully manual slog. Yet, slowed or not, Ink didn’t dare abandon the rescue. He remained unshaken. Unfazed. Because _nothing_ could faze him on Green. Not even the fact that Error so clearly didn’t want him around.

Using all his strength, he managed to barely drag them both out of the initial onslaught of jagged rocks that came raining down from above. He successfully, albeit roughly, slammed the black skeleton’s spine against the nearest non-broken pillar only a few feet away, bracing them in a feeble hope that its structural stability might provide some protection against the collapsing ceiling.

The whole building came down on top of them.

By the time the dust cleared and his disoriented charge came back to his senses, Ink already had him pinned flat against the column, shielding his nemesis from any falling debris that trickled down. Breaths scant in their shared space. He winced as some remaining rubble fell too close to them, scraping harshly down his back, but it wasn’t enough to force the hollow sketch to liquefy like he had earlier during the fall’s initial impact. Instead Ink winced against the pain, protecting Error as a somewhat ‘living’ shield.

The glitch, high on Yellow, laughed in his face at the noble act. “AHa-HA! This GaRbagE again? Are-are you just doing thi-this to spite me now? Do you not-0t listen at- _at all?”_ He mocked with an underlying, growing fury behind his grin, “How man-many times do I have-ave to tell you noT to tOuCH mE? I don’t-ON’T wAnT your damn-mn MERCY!”

Of course, Ink didn’t back off at all at the cavil.

There was _no way_ the Guardian was going to budge even an inch while the roof was still unstable. And certainly not while the glitch was proving to be as much of a hazard to himself as he was to the surrounding environment. Error had _no idea_ how fragile he looked right now.

He was in _literal_ _pieces._ A hole smashed out of the back of his head. Cracks scattered over half his skull. More scratches on his freshly pummeled face. A dented chest. Broken ribs. A shirt riddled in bloody holes. Missing an entire half of his leg with the remaining half singed horribly. This close even his breathing sounded ragged…

“Trust me, you want my mercy right now.”

The guardian knew how easy it was to ignore pain when under the influence of boiling rage. Maybe Ink could’ve handled the stress on his own body. He was lifeless to begin with. No matter how much he got ripped apart; he’d always reform, but Error could _die._ Error might be the strongest person he’d ever known, but even Error was still _alive._ Despite everything; he still had a _soul._

And Ink clearly didn’t understand how a soul was supposed to work.

By his estimation, the yellow paint should’ve overwritten the rage’s recklessness with a happy outlook that would’ve left Error blissfully harmless. The glitch should’ve been safely laughing his head off by now about some silly nonsense. That’s how yellow paint would’ve worked on Ink, at least. Instead he’d gotten… whatever _this_ mess was supposed to be?

“Do I hav-ave to spell it out for you-u? _We’re fighting_!” Error snarled in giddy, mocking disbelief, “You don’t rescue your-our enemies, you brainless doll! Ha HAH! Don’t tell me you’re-re seriously _this_ stupid, scatterbrain! Is-s your he-ead on backwards, too?”

Was it because he was a glitch himself that he’d caused a malfunction with the paint?

Or perhaps happiness and rage were too similar to overwrite one another in a soul like Error’s? Something about his personality? He supposed, technically, both emotions were loud. They could both be reckless. They could both get wildly out of hand, too. Maybe he needed to subdue them with an opposite effect? A complimentary color, of sorts. Something quiet. Something more reserved.

…Blue then?

Certainly a dose of sadness would mellow him out. At the very least, it would be hard for him to throw around such obnoxiously strong hits if he was trapped in the throes of melancholy.

But, negative emotions could quickly lead to some scary thoughts. Fears, insecurities, tragedies. They all reared their ugly head when Blue hung over someone. Given the choice, he’d much rather solve this with a merciful option like Yellow. But he was _out_ of Yellow. He’d used the whole vial—and he wasn’t considering some measly, little drop of Blue here either. He’d need at least _two-thirds_ a vial to succeed.

Well, at least he had plenty to spare.

On the other hand he could give him Green. He didn’t have as much, but surely Calm could counter the obnoxious emotions. It was his favorite to use as a reset himself when he didn’t want to wait for an emotion to wear off on its own. Surely it would negate the other effects. O _rrr_ turn Error into an eerily stoic-faced sociopath… Considering it had the added benefit of quieting a conscience into nothing more than a dull whisper in the back of one’s skull.

Ink flicked his mismatched eyelights, a triangle and sharply inverted question, back up to regard the dirty look the afflicted skeleton was attempting to murder him with. It was as scathing as expected from a literal _destroyer of worlds_.

Blue it was then.

“Are you planning to mov-0ve this century?” The trapped skeleton quipped back harshly, spine pressed flat against the column to keep the absolute maximum amount of distance between the two. Those vibrant, saffron-like eyes were still fixed on the guardian with unwavering hatred, but that left socket of his had some nasty cracks around it, too. The yellow iris within was sparking between an oval and a static tangled-looking squiggle every few seconds.

He knew Glitchy well enough to know that _that_ particular malfunction was abnormal. Their fights had been getting more and more violent over time, but had he ever seen Error so injured? That ‘dull whisper of a conscience’ he was supposed to be blessed with on Green was awfully loud today. Even Ink’s calm, indifferent assessment of the situation gave him pause. Realistically, would Error be able to be so easy-going about all these injuries if Ink hadn’t doused the pain away with over half a bottle of Yellow?

Ink _couldn’t_ hold onto his decision to force Blue under that broken, hazy gaze flickering back at him. His eyelights softened into rounder shapes.

“I’m not going anywhere while _that_ looks busted, too,” He stated softly, tilting his head at the irregularity. He lowered his arms that were caging the other against the pillar in an absent-minded attempt to tilt the ebony chin for a better look, “Can you even _see_ out of that one?”

Error slapped his hand away before it even skimmed against his cheek. “Stop ac-ACTing like you didn’t do it on _PURPOSE_! Yo-yOU RAMMED MY HEAD _int_ -INTO A WALL!”

Oh. Whoops. Guess that injury was one of his. He’d already forgotten about it.

“O _hh_ , well,” Ink hummed, crossing his arms in exaggerated thought, tilting his head to and fro. Offering, “Well, we could take five and fix it up for you then?”

“‘ _We could_ —’” Error sputtered, “Ha ha HAH! You’re-re the worst, you know that? NO, INK! This isn’t a fu-king-ng game you can just pau- _pause_! Get with the-e pro-program already, scatterbrain! We’re enemies. We hat-HATE each other.”

“But you thought we were friends—”

“We aREn’t!” Error interrupted fiercely.

Then, he rubbed at the irritated socket, half covering his face in the process, as he added scathingly under his breath in a barely audible grumble, “I woul-wouldn’t get so mi-mixed up in the first place if _someone_ would act the way that they _should_ …”

Ink’s grin twitched at the corners of his mouth.

Error stiffened as if just realizing what words had tumbled past his teeth. His yellow eyes flicked back up to his nemesis’ angrily, shouting before Ink could voice any nonsense from that particular slip. “WHY are you so-SO uSElesS on any-nything but red paint, huh? Tell me that! Can’t you do your jo-job?! All this-s big, grand ta-alk about protecting life—Heh heh! Do you-ou not understand what I-I aM?” He asked with a sinisterly dark smile as he leaned in, _“ **I’ll kill them, Ink**. _How DaRE you-u mock me ev-everytime by showing up wit-ith that stu-STUpid, carefree grin.”

“Maybe I’m just happy to see you?” Ink suggested.

“HAH. _Liar!_ We-e both kn-now you don’t _feel_ squat,” Error sneered. “No. _You_ do it on _purpose._ ”

He couldn’t help himself. Ink’s eyelights sparked to an amused sun and star combo at that retort.

Yup! It was official. Error understood him better than anyone else! No point in lying about it; because he was absolutely right. Ink couldn’t be happy to see him if he didn’t manually apply yellow paint, but… Error’s reactions were too entertaining to _not_ mismatch their moods for at least part of their meetings together. It wasn’t like they met everyday. What a waste of an encounter it’d be if he didn’t get to see Error at least a little flustered.

Error laughed outright at the guardian’s telling expression. Loudly. Near psychotically. “Hahahah! I KNEW IT! You’re—Yo-You’re worse than _me-E!_ Even when a whole u- _universe_ is on the line; you can’t stop messing arou-around for _five seconds!_ Some ‘Guardian’ you are. Screwing aroun-ound with all the other useless pain-aints. Stop getting everyone’s ho-hopes up with your stupid, lit-little hero act. You’re not ‘hel-elping’ anyone! If you _insist_ on getting in my way,” His eyelights flashed dangerously, “thE-ThEN AT LEasT Fi-FIGHT ME _SERIOUSLY_ , INK! STOP HoLDinG BACK!”

“You want me to fight you seriously?” Ink repeated as if considering the assessment, “You mean; on _red_ paint?”

Red was violent. Merciless. It wasn’t the sort of thing someone riddled with holes should be asking for. There was never a chance to slow down and review damages like this while on _red paint_. There was a reason he always relied on it.

Red certainly had its uses. Even now.

“YES, you braindead splat-atter! That’s what I sa-said!”

“But… you stole that option away from me this time, remember?” He reminded calmly, meeting the other’s gaze with decisive eyelights. “You took it all.”

Error suppressed a near bodily eyeroll, instead taunting back with a wicked, challenging grin, “So it’s _MY fault_ you’re absolutely use-useless on literally every other paint?”

The quip drew a smirk out of Ink, too.

“It is.” He admitted, “I _did_ tell you I couldn’t hate you.” With that, he leaned in, dropping his gaze to the other’s wild smile, voice quieter and contemplative, “I guess I could always steal that option back, huh?”

Ink had closed the distance before the other could even react, dragging a rainbow-colored tongue up the front of his captive’s clamped teeth. The glitch bristled stiffly beneath his touch as the artist licked a long line from the base of his chin, past his mouth, tracing a leftover crimson line.

Glitches flared across the other’s bones. Sockets flying wide in utter shock, but strings of code quickly flooded his vision.

The paint might be dry by now, but, unlike Error, Ink only needed a single drop’s worth to make everything he knew he had to do so much easier. He could take his role as Guardian as ‘seriously’ as the Destroyer demanded him to. He wasn’t proud of it, but at least it was a familiar dependency. He _always_ had to rely on Red whenever he needed to be mean to Error.

The fragile skeleton, once again, fell limp against the pillar. Form glitching erratically as his whole body seemed to shut down, unable to process what madness had just unfolded. Ink, however, leaned away with a deeply unhappy scowl.

Did Error hate it when he met him with kinder paints? Was Red the only acceptable way to interact with him? Maybe sometimes he wanted to slow down enough to actually talk? To exchange just a few words. So what if he dragged out their encounters together? Did that make him “useless” as a Guardian? Was it really so wrong to want the guy around?

…Even if his continued existence consistently put the Multiverse in danger?

Error was the only person in that entire Multiverse who ever even _tried_ to puzzle out what Ink was thinking—everyone else just looked at him like he was crazy. As if he didn’t quite belong. Most people never even told him what he _did_ wrong. A few, like Dream, might attempt to ‘correct’ his behavior. But Error tried to pick him apart. Really get in his head and understand _why_. Ink hardly ever knew what he was thinking himself, but he always felt like he learned something new whenever he was with Error.

His paint _always_ got used in creative ways when Error was involved.

If it weren’t for Error; he never would have experienced such an intense Fear for someone else’s safety today. Or the protective will to push past the impulse of panic’s impulse for something more important. Then, there was the strange phenomenon of a conscience needling its way past Green’s usual stone-cold composure. The stuff usually erred on boredom. Apathy even. But Calm seemed to have an almost gentle edge when Error was around. Ink was always so excited to see him, too. Just think how much he’d thrown up already!

The jumble was hard to make sense of, but— _“I knew you weren’t empty.”_ —Those smug words of Error’s were playing on repeat through his head even now. He clearly didn’t want to see a Multiverse without the glitch in it!

Yet that steadily growing stain of red below Error was a direct threat to his existence.

Ink sighed in frustration, freeing the blue paint from his sash. Of course, Error would be upset with him again if he saved him. So, if he was going to do it; he’d better do it quick before Error recovered and had a chance to do any more damage to himself. He couldn’t believe he’d let the menace’s condition get this bad. At this rate, it’d be even longer than last time before he got to see him again— _if_ Error would even speak to him after this mess.

Keeping his so-called ‘friend’ propped up as best he could, Ink popped off the vial’s cap. This might seem unkind, but he no longer cared if it only had a slim chance of fixing ‘ _his friend’_ –or his ‘nemesis’?—or whatever Error was to him _._ The point was; Error couldn’t stay the way he currently was if he wanted him alive by the end of the day.

Forcing the unconscious skeleton’s head back, Ink dumped a vial’s worth of blue liquid down the back of Error’s throat, watching the paint drain away with a hardened crimson gaze. With any luck, the destroyer would feel at least _a_ _little_ bad about everything he’d done to the innocent people he’d dragged into his tantrum today.

With that unpleasant business taken care of, Ink shot a glare to the second most vexing issue; _the injuries._ His gaze slowly trailed over the battered, motionless form, taking stock of his foe’s many injuries, from the cracked skull, past the hole-ridden ribs, all the way down to that vile, missing foot.

He’d dropped off the map for forty-five days last time because Ink had ‘ripped his arm off’. How long was _this_ recovery going to take?

It always bothered him that Error wouldn’t let him fix him up after a fight. Always running off somewhere alone instead. Sometimes for days or weeks. He was always such a sore loser. Stubborn was what he was. Even just now, he’d turned down a perfectly good opportunity to have his eye repaired! Surely, Error would normally venomously protest any assistance, but he couldn’t complain while he was out cold. So…

Knowing he’d meet absolutely no resistance, Ink turned his attention to the singed off appendage; the injury that was the most likely to keep Glitchy recuperating for longer than merely a few weeks after all of this was said and done. If he fixed it now; he’d likely get to see Error again sooner than later. So, he slipped the sock and slipper off of Error’s one, remaining foot; since he’d need a good reference if he was going to craft such complicated anatomy correctly—Only to discover that the Destroyer had bright, tri-colored, little toes.

Ink almost threw up right there.

_Quickly_ covering his mouth with a fist that held back both a smile and his mounting excitement, the artist’s eyelights shifted into a four-pronged star and pink target that flicked back down from his averted gaze to the vibrant little appendages.

How unexpected! _Really?!_ They matched the pattern on his fingers perfectly! He guessed that made sense, but – _dear creation_ —they were stupidly, unfittingly cute on a supposed villain like Error! He’d sometimes wondered why Glitchy didn’t just go barefoot with the careless way he treated the rest of his outfit. Shoeless would even fit his homeless aesthetic better—Now, he knew it was because he had embarrassingly bright, colorful, little toes.

He couldn’t wait to tease him about this later!

Resisting the urge to hack up a second unsightly splatter, Ink swallowed most of the blackness back down. Only sparing a bit of that excess magic to dab on the end of his brush with his tongue. Then, he wisely shut his mouth as he went to work. Copying the spitting-image of the right foot onto the burnt stump on the left. It took him longer than normal to finish, but that was because he was extra careful in capturing the perfect look.

Afterwards, the artist sat back, reviewing his handiwork.

Hmph! It was an impeccable duplicate! A flawless copy! He’d like to see Error complain about _that_ masterpiece!

Which, knowing Error, he undoubtedly would.

That last thought knocked the artist’s smug ego down a few notches. Of course, Error would find _something_ to complain about when he woke up! So, if he was going to complain either way, Ink saw no issue, whatsoever, in signing his perfect masterpiece.

Which he did. Proudly.

Scrawling his name in fancy letters across the sole of the Error’s new foot. He even included a sarcastic heart for the Destroyer to get properly pissed at later. He could say he just liked pushing all of Glitchy’s buttons… But Ink knew it was collateral. Just a reason Error would be forced to come find him and demand it to be fixed after all of this was said and done.

Error had made it perfectly clear today, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted nothing to do with the guardian.

The grim thought prickled at his mind even now. So, this countermeasure was perfectly justified! How else was he supposed to see him? Because how exactly was any of this fair?! So what if he’d wanted to talk a few times instead of fight? Did Error really have to throw an entire universe through a blender because Ink wanted to hang out sometime? For void’s sake! If that’s what he did when Ink tried to chat, what was he going to do after—

He threw a furtive glance up at the motionless skeleton, whose face was still frozen in abject horror from Ink’s intrusive version of ‘paint collection’.

The guy looked downright scandalized.

A few static glitches broke the silence as they fuzzed across Error’s battered, motionless form, reminding him just how far over the other’s boundaries he’d stepped today.

What even was that unknown anomaly supposed to be? A full system crash? He knew his favorite glitch was always a little busted, but, _since when_ did Error break down to such an extent? He knew Error often kept his distance—he’d _never_ had him this close, but—How long had he kept this a secret from him?

_What else_ might he not know about him?

Ink huffed, freeing an even smaller brush from one of his many pockets. Miffed, he unraveled his scarf enough to find a spare section among the many tidbits he’d jotted down about Error’s behavior over the past two or so years. Spying a spare spot in the mess of notes, he scribbled down the words, ‘ _Error+contact=full system crash?_ ’ across the fabric.

There. Surely; he’d pester him about it later.

He glanced back up at Error’s frozen, scandalized face, unable to resist the urge to sketch a quick doodle of the rare expression down next to the note. While he certainly looked unhappy about being touched— Ink twirled his paintbrush absently around his fingers—He was going to be even less happy with him when he woke up on _Blue._

Now that was an expression he wasn’t looking forward to.

Augh! This whole thing was a mess! He could forget about getting on Error’s good side. At this point; all Ink wanted was a surefire way to ensure he’d see him again! And _not_ get avoided for months on end! And _not_ get ostracized by the only other person in the entire anti-void! And—

The length of scribbled scarf slipped off his lap with the softest _splash_. Ink automatically reached for his fallen, dirtied notes; where his eyes caught sight of the pool of red he was still crouching in.

And whole. Yeah. He’d also wanted Error to be whole.

Right.

Even if Error didn’t want Ink to touch him, or be anywhere near him for that matter; _Ink_ wanted to fix as many of these injuries as possible while he still had the chance. That hole in the back of his head looked particularly painful. Don’t get him started on the punctures Error had riddled throughout his own chest. But if Error fell into this sort of catatonic state over a mere touch; there was no way the stubborn glitch would give him a chance to help later. No matter how perfectly he’d crafted a working foot from thin air!

Hurrying; the artist shuffled a bit closer, tilting the ebony skull to a side, tongue peeking out in concentration, as he rushed to repair the jagged edge around the back of his skull next. The brush’s bristles had just barely grazed the injury when the skeleton jolted back to life with a small, nearly inaudible gasp.

For the briefest moment, their eyes locked at point-blank range.

Then, Error scuttled away from him quickly. Somewhere off to the side. Out of Ink’s reach. Fumbling over a rock or two in the surrounding rubble as he hastily backed away. Crawling just to put some distance between them.

Not in a fearful way.

In an absolutely _repulsed_ sort of way.

Ink found himself sucking in a breath of his own. Bristled stiffly to the spot where he was crouching at at that obnoxious, over-the-top reaction. A stinging insult of rejection beginning to spread painfully from his chest. He didn’t think he could feel so offended. So _insulted._ He’d just saved Error! Heck! He could only crawl away in the first place _because_ he’d fixed his foot!—but the glitch was too far away now to simply snatch him back and demand that he be reasonable.

He’d already retreated to the sort of distance Error _usually_ kept from him. Like today had just been a bizarre fever dream Ink could only hope his scattered memory could recall.

“wHa-WH-What the fresh h-hell was tHa-Th4T for?” Error stammered, furiously scrubbing his teeth as another glitch rippled across his whole body.

Did he seriously have to wipe at his mouth like it were now diseased?

“To get my paint back,” Ink supplied, in a rather unhelpful tone.

“Tha-ThAT’s n0T how –h-How couLD y0u—” Error scrubbed and scrubbed, until his arms became shaky, but he couldn’t seem to wash off the lingering sensation of his enemy’s tongue pressed flush against his teeth. He blinked several times, as if fighting the idea that there were actual tears clouding his vision over an exchange so inherently stupid, and yet—his sockets overflowed, trickling down his curved cheekbones.

There was the Blue. Ill-timed as always.

This is exactly why he’d said forcing an emotion was wrong. How quickly they could lead someone astray down a devastating train of thought over the most minor of slights.

“Now; just take a deep breath and _calm down_ ,” Ink insisted with his strictest voice yet, trying to regain control over the already haywire situation. He remained seated, digging his fists into the cloth of his shorts. They could get past this. Error didn’t _hate_ him. Not truly, right? This whole fiasco was all just a dumb accident to begin with! It was _paint._

These emotions were all fake!

Error didn’t hate him. Error didn’t prefer him dead. Error wasn’t repulsed by the slightest touch of his. That’s right. All fake. Even those large, watery droplets, slipping perfectly down the grooves gouged beneath the glitch’s sockets…

He already said he didn’t want to see that expression, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away either.

Ink had never seen Error quite like this. He’d always known those blue lines below the glitch’s eyes were tear-scars, but he’d never been anywhere close to actually seeing the tears that might have caused them. They trickled down his cheeks in three perfectly spaced lines. At some point in history, Error had cried like this enough that those lines had permanently gouged themselves into his features. But Ink had never seen Error cry—In all their clashes, in all their battles; he’d never actually made Error cry!

It left the void in his chest roiling in an even more unpleasant way. This wasn’t his fault! Alright? It was just _paint._ It was only dumb _paint._

“S _top_ _crying_. Okay?” He bit the words out more harshly than intended. “While you were out, I gave you some blue—”

“So, yoU just did wHaTevER-eVer you wAntED?” Error shouted over him. A raw, almost forced, unfitting pop of laughter wheezed its way from the thick sound in the back of his throat as if he shouldn’t even be surprised. Expression darkening, the stubborn glitch struggled shakily upright onto his now working feet. “Is THis anoTHeR GAME tO yoU?!”

He shouldn’t be standing. He _really_ shouldn’t be standing and the fact that he _was_ prickled against something raw and primal at the guardian’s core. Ink stiffened in the sense that every bone in his body tensed with the desire to shove the fragile skeleton right back down to the floor. Violently even.

“ _Error_ ,” The soulless doll warned with a low growl instead of answering that nonsense question. He barely fought down that furious urge. Distracting himself instead with the mesmerizing way that the steady trail of tears dripped off the other’s chin.

“Hah! That-at’s it, isn’t it-t?” The figure called giddily from across the way through a sore voice. Ink didn’t miss the way a shaky, half-smile broke across his leaking cheeks. Error knew he was right. He knew him so well.

His face twisted.

“You think thi-this is all just some big, fu-king GAME for your own entertainment! That’s why you MOCK me like this! _Well?_ ” He asked, tone twisting darkly as he spread his arms just as mockingly wide, offering a splendid look of his hole-ridden torso and the deep snarl set on his tear-streaked face, “Do I enter- _enteRTAIN_ you, guardian?”

The raspy, distorted tone was downright distressing. Paralyzing. Shattered in a way that could wrench the heart of someone who actually had one. His words echoed through the ruined land with a bitter ring of truth.

Ink immediately wished he hadn’t allowed this to happen. He should’ve tried his hand at Green first. He was mistaken to believe his glitch might be the type to mope. To shut himself up in a tight little ball and ignore the world…. but that _was_ what Error was usually like when he was upset. Was this really what Error’s _sadness_ was like?

Or was this just another malfunction?

It was raw, sure. Hopeless, too. But also somehow furious. A whole bundle of unpleasantness dipped in sarcastic glee. It was such a mixed bag of—Ink was on his feet, tense, before he’d even finished the thought— _Mixed?_

No, that shouldn’t be possible!

Ink had only ever experienced one emotion at a time. Even a single drop of another paint would overwrite—But, surely, that was what he was looking at! It was all there. Anger, amusement, and hurt _all at once_. All three paints were still active in his soul. Not glitched. Not mismatched. No. Not a single color had been overwritten, had it? They had only been combined. Together. Into one strong, complex mixture.

Which meant…

In Error’s soul; he’d concocted a truly vile emotion.

_B e t r a y a l_

It contorted Error’s features in the worst, most broken, agony-ridden expression Ink had ever witnessed. The so-called guardian stood aghast, as the glitch slowly dragged a set of spindly wires out of his sockets, tears seeping down the strings as his multi-colored fingers scraped the lines from the depths of his dark voids. Skeletal fingertips scratching harshly down bone to the corners of a forced, Cheshire-wide smile.

“ **Is my-y whole life just the-there for you to PLaY wiTH WHenEveR yOu’Re feELing _BORED? Heh! Heh!_** _”_

“No! I—”

What an accusation! But he couldn’t refute it either.

He _did_ play with Error, but he thought he’d never done so in a heartless way before. ‘It was all in good fun?’ He didn’t have a heart either, though, so when exactly would a soulless being like himself know when to draw the line? Maybe he’d only ever done so _in_ a heartless way before? Why did he always toy with Error when he got the chance? If he was a Guardian of the Multiverse, why let a threat like Error run around so freely? He must want something from his life more than a mere plaything.

“Is my whole li-life just there for you to _MOCK?”_

“Of course not! I just wanted you to share it with me— _!_ ”

Ink barely dodged the bone attack that _crack_ ed through the ground below his feet before he’d finished blurting out his nonsensical answer.

“I don’t wanna HEAR it!” Error snarled, hand outstretched where he’d launched the attack. Unable to stop the tears leaking from his eyes as his sore voice bellowed, “You nEver ha-had to LIVE IT, Ink! It’s not a goddamn GAmE out here. It’s re-REAL LIFE. Huheh! But y-you wouldn’t know _an-anything_ about what-at _that_ is like, huh?” He guffawed mockingly, voice breaking as he forced through tears. “It’s not-‘s not ‘fun’, you asshole. It’s not-ot a ‘blessing’ or a ‘gift’. I’m te-telling you; this whole _MULTIVERSE_ shouldn’t ExIST!”

With that; the glitch ominously upturned his outstretched hand. A motion full of deadly promise. Above it; the frazzled, damaged, little doll from his inventory materialized in midair and dropped into the destroyer’s waiting palm.

Ink stiffened at the sight of the dangerous, little toy. Too many things warring inside him at once to get a proper grip on himself. Too much fury roiling through his senses. He found his own voice levelling a threat before he’d even sorted through them all, “Put it _down_ , Error.”

But the fierce lilt to his words was more than just the familiar habit of protecting a universe that was in danger. It went beyond duty or titles. This was no time to continue this _stupid_ battle of theirs. This was not the time to be fighting! Error was _barely_ standing!

“You really think anyone heRe-Ere wanted their lives to be toyed with?” He held the limp, lifeless puppet out threateningly at the creator. “You-u think anyone here wants to be helpless to som-omeone else’s whims? _For entertainment?”_

“ _Error,_ ” Ink snarled, vision ebbing towards crimson as he took a step towards the destroyer, reminding, “This was a mostly pacifist timeline before you—”

“ **You** hear them, _TOO_ , right?” Error barked over him, one finger jabbing accusingly towards the vacant sky of crimson binary. “Don’t you _GET iT, ScatTeRbrain_? It’s ALL some no-name kid’s sick jo-j0ke! Can’t you see I’m doing these pla-places a daMn faVoR!”

“No, you’re not!” Ink only met his obstinate fury head-on with an ardent, unwavering gaze, “No one here _wants_ to die, Error!”

The glitch’s face rumpled in in a mix of hate and hurt. His saffron eyes flicked down to the helpless doll in his hand almost with a sense of resignation. Digital voice wavering as he muttered, “You-ou’re l-LUCkY your world-d never got finished, ya Kn0w?”

Then, almost jarringly abrupt, Error ripped out a handful of threads from the puppet’s spine.

The whole world spasmed in response. A deep rumble emanating from the very core of the world as the very sky seemed to bend inward as though it were crumpling in on itself. A place that had been so loving crafted to fill the void’s emptiness was finally starting to unwind.

Fury, hot and fierce, laced through the guardian. His warnings gone entirely unheeded. Yet Ink found a different kind of rage flash through him when he saw the destoryer’s footing pitch dangerously as the ground lurched below them both. Nearly throwing the unsteady, _stubborn,_ hole-ridden skeleton to the floor.

“Error, STOP!” The guardian commanded in a booming tone as his eyes flicked across the forebodingly wrinkled sky. The damaged world was beginning to flicker in and out of existence. One second Ink was standing in the demolished palace, the next he was standing in a blank, empty, white void of absolute nothingness, then back in the ruined palace once again. Over and over in a disorienting strobe.

He had to act. Or this world really wasn’t going to be able to survive Error’s temper.

Crimson eyelights snapped back to his opponent. Ink took off at a sprint through the failing scenery, “ _— **Don’t**_ **erase them!** ”

“’Don’t eRase theM’?” Error echoed back as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “Do you-ou think anyone _likes_ being toyed with? Do you think _P_ **x** _pY_ **xx** _S_ _LIKED_ being toyed with?!” The Destroyer thundered, voice nearly incoherent as it frayed at the edges. Eyelights fuming as they met the approaching guardian head-on. He readied himself for the incoming clash, ripping a string from his own socket so violently that a spurt of blood spewed free along with the length of wire, “Do _YOU_ hav-ave _ANY_ idEA how-ow that FEELS?!”

As if he wasn’t already damaged enough! Ink hesitated mid-step, grimace set tight on his features as he struggled between _two_ things to be pissed about. He didn’t know which to protect first. Error threatening every inhabitant in an AU was nothing new, but Error harming himself in the process was _the worst_ possible outcome.

“Error, your eyes—!”

Blood was leaking freely from his socket now, mixing with the constant trail of Blue-induced tears that streamed down his cheeks.

“Don-On’t even PRETEND like you care now, _‘Guardian’_!” Error seethed, “You’ll have to try haRder than tha-THAT if you want to save this sorry place!”

Without even bothering to sever the weapon from his own dripping socket, Error cracked the bloodied, excess line out like a whip at the wavering guardian. The strike lashing out abruptly fast and way too precisely for its prey’s unguarded neck to be fair.

Ink didn’t bother to dodge. Couldn’t.

He flinched, shielding himself behind his arms. They caught the attack instead; the string winding a coilingly tight embrace around his forearm instead of his throat. If even a fraction more pressure were put behind it, Ink was certain it would constrict straight _through_ his arm. To lessen the sheer force behind the ever-coiling constraint, his only option was to twist his wrist, grabbing the line from his own end as well.

Blood dripped from the wire.

“Haven’t you hurt yourself enough today?! Stop it!” Ink shouted as they both fought for control of their half of the red-stained line, “Stop _now._ You can do this some other day!”

“Yo-y0u think I’d just SUBMIT? I wo-w0n’T be someone’s _PLAYTHING,_ Ink!” The destroyer snarled, fist tightening around the damaged puppet with promise, “Not-0t a second longeR!”

He didn’t even think. The artist’s free hand snatched the taut wire, still connected at the other end to the destroyer’s socket, and he pulled—

Error lurched forward, his cruel expression kissing the floor with a heavy _thud_. The puppet went skidding out of his hands off to the side.

He stayed down for a painfully long moment of silence. Before a slow, broken streak of laughter rose from the fallen figure. Rising into the flickering scenery with a distorted sense of humor as Error struggled back onto his hands and knees. Fists clenched into the floor. Shoulders shaking.

“Isn’t the Multiverse just So0o _FuNNy_?” Error chuckled. A certain thickness hanging in his laughter. When he finally tipped his head up to meet Ink’s gaze it was clear the tug had aggravated Error’s already sore sockets. Tears and blood were smattered across his whole face. The glitched eyelight from earlier was now blown wide into a hazy ring with a stark blue center as if the pupil had been ripped open. His fluctuating voice grew steadily louder as he wrestled himself back onto his bare feet, ignoring the pool of blood beneath him, “Aren’t all these jo-j0KeS on me just HILARIOUS?”

Livid, he snagged the string himself and swung with all his strength, launching Ink off his feet.

The artist went spiraling; flung into some broken semblance of a remaining structure off to the side. He hit hard. The impact so forceful the wind was knocked clean out of him, leaving Ink choking on the dusty fog unsettled by his own violent collision.

As he looked up he could see Error through the parting clouds. Eyelights glistening fiercely against the shadow of his expression. The roiling smog around his looming figure dancing in and out of existence as the world strobed around them.

“After every-everything I’ve been through; I fin-FINALLY got out of that place. I FINALLY got a chan-chance to puT an END to all these WRETCHED MiSTAKeS—and—Ha! HAH!—Woul-wouldn’t you know it? I-I get saddled with _you._ ”

The words were chillingly hateful. As if he couldn’t imagine a worse outcome. The sentiment prickled against Ink’s anger like a fan against flame. Furious; he yanked his half of the wire again.

Error braced against it, refusing to be thrown to the floor for a second time. Still, he was weak. Barely standing and splattered in his so much own blood. Despite a valiant effort to keep his dignity, he skidded forward. He managed to withstand the initial force of the tug, but as Ink doubled down, snarling, and pulled a second time; the injured monster slipped on the slick pool beneath him. Spine hitting the ground a bit too roughly with a vivid, indistinguishable _crack_.

Ink reeled the gasping skeleton in by the eye-socket. Winding the string around his arm to gradually lessen the distance between them. Scowl etched deep into his usually playful features, “Error, don’t make me do this! Just agree to stop already!”

Yet Error was hardly giving up.

He struggled against every inch as he was dragged across the floor. Twisting around as he fought with the line to be pulled feet-first instead of headfirst towards his enemy. He hooked a knee around the taut wire, winding the string around his leg to regain some control. Some slack. One fist curled around the base where it met his socket to lessen the pain. The other arm tried to snap through his end of the line with a quick strike of his wrist.

It didn’t work.

Two more jabs and it still didn’t break.

Cursing, he continued to be reeled in. The black skeleton flopped over onto his front, tangling himself more in the wire as he struggled to gain enough leverage to pull himself back against the drag from such a disadvantageous angle. But Ink was clearly winning this tug-of-war. Anything the glitch tried to grab onto disappeared as the world strobed between existence and oblivion. With the brief leverage gained from some vanishing rubble, Error forced himself back a few inches, just enough to snatch the fallen doll on the floor before it escaped his deadly reach.

Abandoning his losing fight over the wire entirely, the destroyer turned his full attention to the captured puppet instead. Ripping at the helpless doll as he was dragged along the ground.

“A Sans b- _BEGS_ ME to put an-an end to his fucking prison and _you-u_ show up _laughing_ , ranting-g on and on about how GREAT that-at world is supposed to be _!_ ” He tore out threads from the toy’s guts like some wild, ravenous animal that just got its claws on fresh prey.

Ink wound the bloodied string faster. “ _ERROR!”_

“We spend HOURS at each other’s throats, locked in vicious, le-LethAL combat, and you show-ow up in my face FIVE MINUTES later with-ith _chocolates_ and a _board game_ before the _bruises_ have even _healed_!” He ripped at the puppet’s skull, unwinding half of its head in one go.

“I erased _thousands_ of these dirty errors _._ New anomalies started to pop-p up less and less. I was ma-making a _difference!”_

The world was struggling to stay alive. The flicker strobing faster. Sometimes the colors were wrong. Or sometimes the world was viewed through a fuzz of static. Occasionally only mere sections of it appeared. But every time it blinked into existence, the distant shrieks and cries picked up right where they’d left off before.

“Can’t you hear them screaming?!” The Guardian roared over his rant, finally reeling him in to the base of his feet, “THIS IS THEIR **_HOME,_** ERROR!”

He lunged for the doll, but the destroyer twisted it out of his reach. Even this close, bent over the other, Ink couldn’t tell if it were blood or tears stinging the corners of the glitch’s vision as he glared up at him with absolute vile.

_“_ And-d yoU expeCt me-E to believe you suddenly appear, noT-0t for rev-eVenGe, but just to poke at me-E and chat senselessly about your day? _Bullshit, Guardian!”_ Error hissed up at him, finally down to a mere bag of strings that had dust leaking through the tangled knots. “You rea-REaLLY think I’d fall for that?!”

“You’re wron—”

“D0n’T y0U gET iT?!” He screamed over him; “If **_you_ **didn’t PLOT IT; then those-0se asshoLeS sent you aFter me _thEMselvES!”_

Gutted, Ink lost his words. His face twisting. He had no idea how to convince Error that wanting to get along with him wasn’t some sinister plot to make him stop being who he was. He was wrong! Ink only wanted him around. As he’d always been. Temper, avoidance, destruction—all of it!

The way he felt with Error—That unique and bizarrely wonderful take on the paints’ normal effects—the excitement—it couldn’t be the Creators’ conspiracy behind them. It just wasn’t plausible. He’d been abandoned. He didn’t have a place in the Multiverse. He wasn’t part of a story!

_Unless…_

Unless he’d somehow wheedled his way into _Error’s_ story.

With the Guardian struck speechless; it didn’t take Error much to wind his skillful digits through the few remaining strings. He ripped the last threads apart between his fingers.

In a crunching static of strobing images, the world finally collapsed in on itself. Janky screams glitching through the air as the scenery sputtered through the final shreds of its life. Leaving the two out-codes behind in nothing but a massive white emptiness with nothing to fill it.

Ink slumped back on his knees. Eyes hollow as he stared up at the blank void.

He was reeling.

Thrown into a whiplash of sensation as the hungry pit in his chest went from _something_ to satiate it to absolutely nothing in the jarring span of a milisecond. It was hardly Ink’s first time on a blank page, but the utter abruptness of it left a hauntingly dull ache stinging through all his bones. The emptiness was so unbearably mind-numbing against his senses. An unwelcome reference to a time he wished he could leave forgotten.

But Ink wasn’t _alone._

He could hear the ragged, fractured breathing at his side. A stark sound against the utter desolation of the white void. Even without the AU to save, he still had an important role left to play for someone.

_But what exactly was that role supposed to be?_

The vacant doll turned his empty, widened sockets to regard the other out-code. Error scrubbed at his dirty face with the back of his sleeve, before sitting up next to him; a heavy, pained drag to his weary shoulders. Those broken, saffron eyes flicked his way once before steeling and glancing back away.

“That-at won’t be the last time I do that,” He swore stubbornly into the silence, hobbling unsteadily back onto his feet. He held back a wounded noise as nearly a buckets-worth of blood spilled at his feet protesting the movement; “ _Hngh_ —So-0 you can give up-up on me already.”

With a wave of his arm, a digital tear appeared in the space, opening a portal to somewhere far away. He staggered on his first step towards the exit.

Leaving.

He was leaving.

_In that condition!_

Swallowing the thick tar that had caught in his throat, Ink snatched the red-stained wire dragging behind the victor and yanked him straight back to the floor. Error toppled backwards, smacking roughly against the base of the white void. A pained gasp escaped his teeth as his already broken skull cracked against the unpleasantly stiff floor. The shock to his senses causing his exit to sway and dissipate in the background.

He jolted upright, “Wha-whAT the FUCK, Ink—”

Yet Ink had already shoved him back to the ground, climbing on top of him again. Eyelights a red halo and an even darker X, as he lowered his voice dangerously, “You aren’t leaving yet. Not until we’re _done._ ”

“Wha-AT?” The glitch batted his hands off, hissing against the fluctuations that seared across his bones from the contact, “Lo-Lo0K arouND yoU! It’S OVER.”

Ink just grabbed him again and again—however many times it took—forcing him back down in a violent fumble of hands.

“Don’t ‘what’ me, Glitchy! You can’t walk away after all that!” He shouted over the other’s protests.

“WilL YOu Giv-IVe up alReadY! ThERe’S Noth-0thing leFT!” Error snarled back at him, flailing as the guardian dragged him back in by an ankle; “You L0sT thiS 0nE!”

“ERROR, do I _mean_ _something_ to you? Well, what AM I?” Ink prompted hostilely. In their furious fumble, he managed to secure a hand around the destroyer’s neck, pinning him harshly against the floor by the throat. He didn’t want to believe it, “Tell me, are we _enemies?”_

He wanted so badly to know his place in Error’s soul.

The Destroyer laughed. Fresh tears springing into his eyes, “—HEH! If you pLAN to fin-fINiSH ME off; at least be QUICK about it, INK!”

His grip tightened on the other, ignoring the protest of pixilations that erupted around the unwanted contact. Ink spat the next question out with ire, “Do you seriously think I could _hate you_? Even now?”

Error struggled against the arm pinning him down without much luck. His weakened grip was a bleak contrast to his usual unfathomable strength. Those saffron eyelights shimmered with dampened hatred as they burned back, voice broken, “If-f I say ‘ _yeS’,_ w0uld you finally do it?!”

“If only you knew how infuriating it is to see you this injured… No, Glitchy, I won’t kill you.” His grip eased slightly on the other, as his thumb ran thoughtfully up the curve of his neck. “…I never do, do I? Does that make us friends, then? Do you actually like me?”

The other stiffened at the sensation. He looked absolutely affronted to be given such a soft touch. His retort was downright aggressive, “You-ou don’t listeN-n at all, do you?”

“No, I think I heard you loud and clear,” Ink challenged, growing more arrogant with every word, “You _care_ about me. Enough that you want to throw me aside. Am I distracting you from your objective, Error? Do I sway your thoughts that much?”

Error’s expression steeled against the accusation, clouding any weakness that may have been there.

“…If I _can_ persuade you that much, then maybe you’ll do me a favor?” Ink continued, firm. “Let me fix those injuries before you leave. Consider it my gift to ‘the victor’ of this round.”

“No.”

The answer was too quick to have even been considered.

The guardian’s expression snapped into a deep frown. The Red’s influence easily flaring up at the blatant refusal. “Stop being stubborn! You really think you can walk out of here LIKE THIS?! You’re going to die before the paint numbing you even wears off!”

Ink was certain if he let Error leave now, he wouldn’t properly address the wounds he’d received. Anger made him pissed he’d gotten hurt in the first place. Sadness made those injuries painful. But Happiness probably made him shrug them off as if they were mere badges to wear proudly after a victory. The evidence was obvious. Even as his strength was waning in front of his very eyes, Error kept moving around—even when every little motion oozed marrow out of his open wounds. Without Fear, Ink couldn’t be certain that he’d treat them at all.

And the white vial was broken.

Ink may square off against the Destroyer regularly, but the last thing he’d want was for Error to disappear. He didn’t truly want to leave on bad terms with him either. But more than anything, he didn’t want Error to shut him out of his life. He _wanted_ to be part of Error’s story. Even if he had to be the villain.

So, he demanded, “Let me _help._ ”

Error dug his fists into the wrist around his throat, feet kicking as he tried to twist his way out of the grip. “I sa-said NO, Ink!”

“Your foot works FINE now, DOESN’T IT?! I can do that for the _REST_ of YOU, _too_ ,” Ink shouted over his stubbornness, trying his best to hold the struggling patient down so they’d aggravate the grievous wounds as little as possible. “I can get you back to your normal, world-ruining strength in no time! So why complain?”

Though he’d only held him down by a single point on his neck at first, the second the thrashing kicked up Ink was forced to throw a leg across his torso, settling his full weight on top of the other to keep him pinned. It was a countermeasure he instantly regretted taking. Waves of static scattered over the skeleton’s form with the extra, unwelcome contact. Jolting visibly _and_ audibly through all his bones.

It didn’t look _pleasant._ He looked like he might fracture apart.

“ _AgGHHzzt—!”_ The glitch shouted through code-flooded vision, “KILL ME or GET-eT OFF!”

He definitely wasn’t going to cooperate now.

They could do this another way then. He was going with plan B. The artist unhooked a vial from his sash. Green would calm him down. Or maybe it would allow him to think logically enough about his predicament to accept the aid without such a pointless tantrum? Worst case scenario; it’d at least get him to thrash around a bit less. Which meant Ink would have to hold him down less.

It’d be painless.

“Ok, ok!” Ink soothed unhelpfully. He bit the cork from the cap off, pressing the sensation of cool paint against his blinded foe’s teeth. Urging him to take the liquid relief, “Here. This should help—”

Error smacked the glass out of his hand.

Ink watched, speechless, as the bottle shattered off to their left, leaking the priceless emotion all over the floor in a vivid green stain. He didn’t have much time to process the utter waste of a ruined vial.

“I don’t want your faKe fRiendSHIP, Ink!” Error snarled up at him, venom dripping from every word, “You’re such an EYesORe!!”

The thrashing kicked up tenfold. Error snatched him by the front of his shirt, nearly chucking him clean off. Ink scrambled to hold the enraged skeleton down, but the destroyer was unforgiving. Shards of energy crackled around the pair. Barely-there, failed attacks that sputtered as they tried to form. He was sure if Error got ahold of himself enough, they’d be looking straight into the maw of another blaster.

As it was, several, lengthy bones ripped through the floor of the torn page unsettlingly close to the two. Inches right of Ink’s shoulder. Millimeters left of Error skull. Directly between their tangled knees. Ink fumbled frantically along the many empty spaces on his sash, searching for a backup plan that he didn’t have.

He barely had any vials left!

Disgust would only make things worse. Orange would just make him jumpy and anxiety-ridden. Pink would—

— _Pink?_

Error _hated_ being touched, but Pink would make him _crave_ touch… How would Error react to that? Any insignificant form of contact set off a wave of glitches across the destroyer’s bones causing him to flinch, freeze, or, apparently, even reboot. The duality might be enough to immobilize him!

It was a surprisingly good option.

Too good of an option, in fact, to risk the glass getting shattered again.

“You’re a dir-diRtY little **_mistake!_** ” Error snarled up at him, though with all the numbers scrolling through his sockets, he doubted the glitch could see him well.

Ink downed half the vial in one swig.

With a shove, he pinned him back against the floor by his throat. There was a bloody mix of tears building at the corners of the glitch’s code-flooded sockets as he screamed, “I juST WANT YOU TO DISAPPEAR—”

Ink urgently pressed a mouthful of paint against Error’s teeth, wrestling him down into a forceful kiss. With all the screaming, he’d caught him open-mouthed. Error jolted, squirming beneath him for several long moments. Fists twisting into his sleeves. A choked, muted noise escaping between their teeth as air was denied him. But he could only go breathless for so long. Shivering, Ink felt him swallow into their kiss.

As they eased apart, for the briefest second, Ink could feel something wet connecting them.

Before Error broke away violently, quickly turning his head aside in utter rejection. Chest heaving as he coughed and sputtered through stolen breaths, trying to expel the unwanted stimulant. He wouldn’t even look back in his direction, eyes shut tight. His voice reduced to merely a raw whimper, “’s not fai-aiR. It’s not FAIR, INK! You-ou don’t even remember mE half-alf the time!” His fists, which had woven their way into his clothing, were shaking against his chest. “Why am I the only one who gets stuck with these memories?!”

But everything else was just a distant, hazy murmur against the thunder of his own panted gasps. There was fire on tingling his breath. A lingering spicy taste. Ink only stayed away long enough to dutifully down the second half of the vial.

He wrenched Error’s head back around by the jaw, forcing their teeth together in a second demanding kiss. He felt Error struggle briefly under his hold. Yet Ink leaned deeply into the weak gasp the other gave in response, parting his mouth open. The complaint muted as a single trail of Pink escaped between their locked teeth, trickling softly down the side of his ebony cheek.

It wasn’t even a fight this time.

The glitch practically melted below him into a shivering mess. Jaw going slack as it yielded to Ink’s insistent coaxing. The faintest hum of approval purred against his breath.

It was the most unlikely, intoxicating noise the guardian had ever heard. It clouded all of his other senses with hope, encouraging Ink to lean deeply into his captive once more. And again. Another. Kissing him leisurely in a gentle lull of teeth as he cradled the other’s skull between his palms. An exhilarating sense of satisfaction was pulsing through his bones with every breath of Error’s that he drank. He was distantly aware that he should stop, but he remained lost in the other for far longer than he intended, until the guardian finally realized how long he’d drawn the ‘transfer’ out for.

Only then did Ink pull away cautiously. Fully ready to get blasted, but the blow didn’t come. Error had closed his eyes amid their kiss, head tilted, and teeth parted like he was still waiting for more. When he slowly opened his sockets, his beautiful pupils were glassy; clear of any errors. The glitch blinked listlessly as they separated, chest heaving with deep, breathless pants as he tried to come back to himself. Expression blissed out and hazy.

Ink smirked at him fondly.

He’d wager Error didn’t get touched all too often; let alone _tenderly._

“I’m gonna—” Error seemed to fight with himself for a long moment as he tried to recover, tone ebbing back towards rage. “’M-m gonna—” He shivered as the guardian traced his thumb up the embedded blue tear stains beneath his sockets, his palm hovering just to the side of the curve of the other’s cheek.

“It’s ok,” Ink hushed softly, “Give into it. You don’t have to feel bad right now. It feels nice, right?”

The trembling glitch beneath his hand _really_ tried to fight the new emotion off, but his anger ebbed away with a pitiful whimper, turning his head into the promised touch. “— _mmh_ ,” The battered skeleton sighed brokenly, a single tear escaping his socket at the sinful relief. It didn’t stop a few glitches spasming around the ivory fingertips.

Ink clamped his teeth shut, trying to shove down a swell of black ink. _Error–_ the destroyer of worlds, Error— _was currently trying to snuggle into his palm_! The artist couldn’t help but grin, something deep in his chest stirring at the sight, even if he knew, realistically, Error wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole on a good day.

Pink paint. This was pink paint. He told himself as he relaxed his hand around the hint of a flush starting to light the other’s dark cheekbones in an eye-catchingly yellow hue.

_Of course_ Glitchy would blush his favorite color.

“Sorry,” Ink rasped, though caught in the effects of Pink himself, he couldn’t stop himself from nuzzling his skull closer to the blushing skeleton beneath him. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, but the touch sparked off several errors glitching across the other’s cheekbone. Wincing against their burn, the destroyer let out a very uncharacteristic squeak at the delicate touch.

“—an!”

Considering his reaction to the other paints, Ink could only consider this response a success.

“Really sorry about this, Glitchy,” Ink repeated with a fond smile, backing off slightly so his eyes could rove over the dark, bright-flushed bones instead. The contrast was truly something beautiful. It wasn’t everyday he got to see him like this. It was oddly endearing. “I’ll make it up to you properly later, ok? I promise.”

Error was squeezing his sockets shut too tightly to see the other’s faked expression of apology, too busy trying to fight the effects of nearly a full vial of concentrated aphrodisiac. His voice shaky, “Shi-shit. What have you done?”

“Heh. Well. Try and stay calm—”

“ _How?!”_ Error roared over him angrily, voice reverberating around the void in a broken echo. His sharp glare thrown at the guardian only seemed to make him suddenly aware of how close they were. Another vivid flush doubled over his usually dangerous features, eyelights flying down to his hovering teeth, “Are-Are you serIouSly drooling ink again-n?! Get off already! Get oFF of me, you-ou ugly squid!”

He tried to shove Ink away, but of course the soulless doll didn’t budge an inch. Not to that weak attempt. The guardian at least attempted to gulp his excitement down before speaking again.

“I can’t leave you like this. I’ve never had a soulful being swallow so many paints before. Or… well, _any,_ frankly.”

“And-nd _whose_ faULt is that?!” Error shot back, though he didn’t look nearly as intimidating with that glorious golden flush painted across his features. Ink should probably feel bad in this moment. Any true protagonist would at least feel terribly responsible for his foe’s current predicament.

But Ink didn’t feel any guilt at all.

_Couldn’t_ under the effects of the pink paint himself. He just thought these previously unknown expressions of Error’s were endearingly cute.

He continued to toy with the lines below Error’s sockets, tracing his thumb along the scars. Mesmerized by the tiny, pixels that sparked up at his touch, but Error wasn’t hissing against them like he was before. He wasn’t fraying so far apart that he looked like he might split. He was wincing, sure, in a displeased sort of frown, but his eyes were thrown to the side, pointedly avoiding the closeness of the other’s face. A few tears still welled in his sockets.

“Does it hurt?” Ink murmured, distracted.

“It’s uncomfortable. Get o-off,” Error corrected with significantly less bite to the tone, still avoiding his face. The blush was ever so slowly receding off his cheekbones.

“Is that so,” Ink hummed, thoughtfully. They’d certainly seemed painful to him earlier. Was a tolerance for touch a side-effect of the pink paint? “Well, no can do, Glitchy,” The artist started searching through his pockets for the tool he’d need. “This is going to be a lot easier while it doesn’t hurt.”

“ _WHAT_ is?” Error turned his scowl back to the guardian, significantly less shy over their proximity.

Ink stopped patting himself down in an attempt to find the missing utensil, blinking down at the other. He’d mentioned it, hadn’t he? “Healing you, of course.”

“I nev-EveR _agreed_ to that,” Error sneered, features twisting into indignant rage.

“Aww! Don’t be mad, Glitchy,” The artist cooed, lovestruck by how cute that sulk looked. He giddily slid his hands in under the glitch’s jawline to tease his thumbs along his cheeks again. The blush returned just as vibrant as before under the soft caresses. “You can leave the second I’m done. I’m just going to make sure you’ll be alright. This much paint isn’t normal.”

_Ink_ didn’t even usually swallow that much paint.

“Besides, you really did a number on yourself. Don’t these hurt?” He ran his hand over one of the holes in his jacket, curling his fingers curiously around the fragile rib below.

Error sucked in a hiccup of uneven breath, hands flying up to grip tightly into the arms of Ink’s wandering hands, just above the elbow as if he were about to rip them off; but he didn’t. Eyes squeezed tight as he stuttered out, “In-IN-Ink! _Qu1T it_.”

Angry as it was, there was something else in that tone, too. Something temptingly reminiscent of that faint hum of approval he’d gasped into their earlier kiss.

Ink’s eyes lidded. _Oh._ Interesting.

Keeping his fingers lightly wrapped around the bone, the artist playfully slid his hand along the curve of his rib, rubbing the soft fabric of his shirt along the frayed bone.

Error’s eyes snapped open. His whole body jolted alive. Feet scrambling against the floor for a few seconds, trying to find purchase as his claws riveted themselves deeply into Ink’s arm to ground himself through a full-body shiver.

Ink couldn’t resist.

“Does it hurt in a _good_ way?” He grinned, dipping his head into the now open curve of his tilted neck when he threw his head back.

“ _Ink,”_ Error gasped his name, not in a sexy way. In an annoyed way, where surely a complaint was soon to follow if he could just breathe evenly. Yet Ink didn’t give him that chance. He wanted to see more of Error’s cuter side. Invested, he lightly bit the side of his neck, stroking the captured rib a little more firmly.

The way the other arched into his touch was animalistically pleasing.

“In— _!!_ —VoidDaMniT, Ink!” Error cursed, flailing and failing to untangle them. He couldn’t back away; not with his back already to the floor. A barrier Ink was more than happy to take advantage of. He laid his full weight into him, fondling the sensitive rib in a teasing way as he seized another taste of bone along his exposed throat, “I saiD st0p, IN—I thou-Ought you were going to hea— _ahn!—_ f-f- **FuCk YOU** , INK!”

“ _Mm._ You could do that,” He purred dreamily into a mouthful of midnight near the base of his neck. Ink sure as hell wouldn’t mind. Not if he made noises like that.

Error sputtered through several colorful curses at that comment, failing to squirm his way out of the guardian’s tight grip. Ink was more than satisfied to keep him there, every twist giving him a new and interesting angle to knead his ribs through the fabric. Enthralled by the tempting motions he got in return, his other hand slipped under the destroyer’s disheveled shirt. Face buried deeply into the crook of his neck to drink in that almost-moan when his fingertips first traced along the inside of his bare spine.

“— _Hnn!_ —InK! Will yo-You get OFF—” But it was more desperation in his tone than anger this time. His quivering legs were twisted inwards tightly, hugging Ink’s hips unintentionally close—and the best part—he still hadn’t crashed. Intoxicated, the artist nibbled his way down to his collarbone, stretching the neckline of his shirt as he tried to get access to more hidden bones. Fingers absently sketching lines down along the divots in his spine towards an alluring warmth.

“Fu-FUCK! FuCk! **FINE!** You-OU caN heal me or WHATEVER! Just— _nn_ —Just st0p _!_ Do-On’t go any lower!!”

Ink blinked at the pitiful outburst, lost for a moment as he tried to make sense of that request. Though, the desperate plea to stop was pretty obvious.

He eased himself off the other, hovering just far enough away to look down at his panting victim. The shirt was twisted and disheveled, ridding up at the bottom just enough to get a teasing peek at his naked spine. A ripple of pixels undulating along its length. The dark skeleton’s chest was heaving up in down with deep, broken gasps, desperate to calm the heat with fresh air. Along his own sleeves, he could feel those multi-colored fists trembling in faint aftershocks even where they dug bruises into his arms. Error glared up at him with frustrated tears pricking the corners of his beautiful, saffron sockets.

“Tha-At’s _fine_ with you, is-isN’t it? That’s what you WANT!”

Ink flushed at the sight. A vibrant rainbow blush creeping across his face as he nodded mutely at the sight. _Want? WANT?_ Stars—He wanted anything Error said he did! He nodded more vigorously.

“Do-d0N’T _blush!”_ Error growled, smacking a hand into his face as he tugged his shirt down like a girl that had their skirt kicked up by the wind. “Are you-ou even listENing?”

“h—h-heal you?” Ink mumbled uncertainly into his palm. “Heal you?” _Oh._ Oh. That was a lot less sexy than what he was picturing. But that _was_ why he had Error here in the first place, wasn’t it? He fumbled through a slightly more coherent agreement, “Yeah-yeah. I can heal you. _Yes._ ”

Error suspiciously withdrew his palm. “Go0d.” His gaze flicked expectantly up and down Ink’s frame as the guardian tried not to sweat under the observant gaze, unsure whether they found what they were looking for or not. He stiffened at attention when they flicked back up to his face, expression petulant. “Get off.”

Ink squirmed under that mercilessly demanding stare. Stars; his eyes were beautiful. He wanted him to get off, though? Already? He fidgeted in place, stalling. Wracking his brain for a second option and coming up with nothing that sound convincing enough. He simply admitted, “I won’t.”

“Why n0t?” Error’s scowl darkened dangerously, annoyance creeping in, “I just agree-eed to let you heal me. Have some tact.”

“I don’t want you to move.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

“Wel-ell, maybe, _I_ don’t want to be _crowded,”_ He countered.

“Stay like this?” Ink begged. He just wanted Error close. He never had him close! Yet even he heard the needy whine laced into his request, which he hastened to fix, “ _Just for a little bit_ —Just until I’m done!”

“ _NO_ , INK!” Error flung himself up to his elbows, snatching the front of his scarf just to yank him down so he could shout directly into his face. Eyes burning lividly once more. “Get off of mE. Fix-ix me if you must—but I am LEAVING after that. I never want to seE YOUR fa-ace again!”

Even mad; he looked so good up close. It was a crime. Though, Ink liked that blissed out, hazy expression after their kiss a lot better. He tasted good, too. If he leaned in, he bet he could steal another one. This was so rare. He was only an inch away.

Dreamily, he pecked his teeth against Error’s.

The other jerked back at the unexpected response, hand covering his teeth as a yellow flush spread across his cheeks once again. _Really_ looking like he was struggling with himself internally for a minute before his eyes flicked back up to Ink’s with conflicted interest.

So, that was it, huh? He was still fighting the other paints. Unlike Ink, Error’s emotions weren’t overwritten; they were just mixed. He was still angry. He was still _sad._

He could use a distraction, couldn’t he?

“ _Error_ ,” Ink purred his name too hopefully without a moment in-between. He stripped his scarf over the top of his own head. Then, draped his arms around Error’s neck like someone from Underlust might as he pressed another kiss against the hand shielding the glitch’s teeth. He gently pushed him back to the ground so he was lying on top of the plush fabric of his scribbled scarf this time as Ink boxed him in against the floor once again. “That’s fine, Error. You can leave later. But this is going to be a lot easier on both of us if you laid down. So, be a good patient, ok? There’s a lot to fix.”

Error didn’t answer. Even if he wanted to protest; he refused to unshield his teeth. Instead, he clamped his hand even tighter over his mouth as the destroyer sunk down into his shoulders with the shyest golden flush spreading across his adorable features. Eyes peeking past his palm at Ink with wide, uncertain sockets.

As much as he’d love to tease him over that; the artist figured it was best not to antagonize him right now. Not when Pink was the only paint _of four_ that was able to pacify him. Bonus points for the cuteness factor.

Ink leaned in fondly, voice set as a sweet purr, “Should I start with your socket then?”

Error flinched when he came too close. Head instantly snapping in the other direction, unable to look him in the eye. The flush on his cheeks igniting to _neon_ levels _._

“No?” Ink asked, pulling away with a coy smile to give him some breathing room. “Well, I at least get to see your bones, don’t I?”

The guardian dragged up the front of his shirt while the glitch was preoccupied, but Error’s free hand snatched his wrist before he’d even gotten it halfway.

“Alright, alright. How about just your spine?” Ink suggested, leaning back to peek curiously into the space the lifted shirt had exposed. He slipped his other hand into the opening. “I heard a crack earlier didn’t I?”

The other jolted up panickedly. He caught his other hand, too. Every bone tense.

Ink glanced slyly back up to Error’s flustered expression. An open yellow flush that he really had to memorize for a sketchbook later. All hands captured successfully, Ink pressed a kiss into his unguarded teeth, savoring the moment. “You’re adorable, you know,” He murmured softly. Then, grinned, “But this is going to be hard if I can’t see anything.”

Skull still florescent yellow, Error let out a deep, uneven, hesitant sigh. Clearly debating internally with himself for a long while before he reluctantly pried his hands off of Ink’s wrists, practically one finger at a time. Once released, he scrubbed the back of a palm across his teeth, as if wiping away the stolen kiss, with a grumpy expression. He eased himself back into the scarf with a pitifully muffled growl, “At le-least move your leg.”

Deciding to ruin the tender moment, Ink ‘moved’ his leg, kneading his knee against the other’s crotch. It was worth it for the gasp he got in return.

“You’re-re doing that on purpose!” Error roared in outrage.

“I can’t help it,” Ink snickered, “You’re reactions are too good~” Still he refused to stop the motion of his knee, grinding against the other’s coccyx in a slow, tempting pace.

“ _ahn_ ,” Error panted in shame. “Stop. I’ll kill-ill you— _nn_ —I’ll kill a hun-hundred AUs if you don’t-t st0p!” But the rage ebbed away under the motion of a teasing knee as the pink burn of desire was brought to the fore-front of his many warring emotions.

Ink smirked at him. He certainly didn’t look like he was thinking about killing worlds right now.

“Just be good and stay still,” Ink instructed, searching his many pockets for a small, fine-tipped paintbrush while he kept the other distractedly pinned. Once he’d located the utensil, he licked the brush, coating it in a thick, black ink with his tongue. Then, he began to redraw the broken cracks missing from Error’s busted skull.

“Ah! Gross. Stop!” Error tried to complain from under him, but didn’t seem to want to move any closer to the skeleton boxing him against the floor to push him off. Avoiding any extra contact now more than ever. No fists. No shoves. Not even eye contact. He simply laid flat as a board, fingers digging into the hard floor, head turned, and expression insulted as Ink stroked the bristles along his injuries. Leg still pressed tightly –and annoyingly—against his crotch.

“You’re th-the worst.”

“It’s just ink, silly.”

“ _Your_ ink,” Error corrected, disgruntled.

“Aw. Come on. I think you’d look good covered in my ink,” He teased with a wink, purposely making an innuendo.

“ _Gross,_ squid. No one-ne wants your disgusting slime on them.”

“What about _in_ them?” He suggested with a wry grin.

“ _Worse._ ” Error bristled, “ _Far_ wor- _worse._ Never-ever speak aGa-again. In fact, get the f-ck off-f of me!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Ink persuaded unconvincingly with a chuckle as he quickly finished his work, painting over the last crack on his skull. He couldn’t muster any real guilt for teasing the irritable skeleton. He couldn’t see these reactions as anything but absolutely charming. Error was stupid cute! But he’d always kind of known that, hadn’t he? Ink dipped his head down lower, whispering the words closer to his teeth, “Do you forgive me?”

“Do-on’t you dar-DaRE say ‘sorry’ to me,” Error snarled, turning away. “We both kno-know you _can’t_ m-mean it.”

“ _Mm_ , you’re right,” Ink purred. Error knew him so well. He slipped an arm under his spine so he could scoop him closer, nuzzling against his captive’s exposed neck instead. “I don’t regret seeing you like this _at all.”_

It was worth it for the faint, adorable, little squeak that hitched in Error’s throat.

Enticed by the sound, Ink drunkenly buried his face further into his neck, grazing his teeth softly along the sides of the vertebrae. He hoped he could hear more sounds like that one, but, even if he didn’t, he was content to keep his glitch close like this. This was so comfortable. Error smelled faintly of chocolates and spice. His bones were warm. That vibrant flush spreading down his neck was so inviting.

He felt the weight of arms wrap half-way around his back.

“DaM-daMN it, scatterbrain!” The other cursed with a pitiful edge, trying futilely to pull him off by the back of his shirt. Yet every struggle wiggled his hips against the leg planted against his crotch, causing him to squirm uncomfortably, “Can-An’t you focus on anything?”

“I could focus on you.” Wouldn’t it be nice if Error were as comfortable here as he was? He licked up the length of his neck. Biting softly against the vertebrae at the top with his tongue to cushion the attack. Moving slowly down the line until he caught one to suck on more rigorously. Laving the sensitive ridges with attention.

“Ink! I- _nn—_!” Error flinched through a delightful pixilation, “My neck’s not injured—INK!”

The artist pressed his knee further between the other’s legs, kneading upwards against his coccyx. The skeleton instantly arched into him, claws digging into his back. He heard the silent gasp, laced with barely-there bliss. Intrigued, he rubbed his knee more firmly against the heat he could feel through the cloth with tempting circles. Coaxing Error to forgive him for this lapse.

The other shivered against him in response. A gentle quake rattling through all his limbs. Flickers of minor errors dancing off his bone. His voice left a whimper of pleasure behind, “I- _nn_ —Ink. The injuries—!”

“I won’t hurt you. Promise.”

“Tha-At’s not— _ahn._ Fuc— _Ink._ ”

That time he did call his name in a sexy way.

He shamefully turned his head to the side which gave Ink _more_ room, not less. Clearly losing to the onslaught of alluring touches. The string-taut tension in Error’s form never quite left, but it undulated through him in a gentle wave of strain and slack, causing the glitch to rock back against Ink’s knee with unintentional encouragement. Fists winding tighter and tighter into the back of his shirt as he coiled around the artist, until they were nearly flush. Error buried just as deeply into Ink’s shoulder as he was into Error’s. Every word the glitch uttered muffled as a digitally tinged vibration across his collarbones, skipping on repeat. But Ink didn’t need to speak Morse code to figure out what he was saying.

He could listen to Error call his name all day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  
> Fun Fact of the Chapter:  
> Error goes on to stitch the stolen string into an Ink-doll as its mouth. Occasionally, it bleeds black ooze from the smile with a blank, button-eyed stare. Despite being his only doll made of yarn and cotton, as opposed to dust and code; it is definitely his most cursed doll.  
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> 
> Random Author Notes:  
> P.S. I'm uploading this late today, so if you see an "update" to Addict, say, tomorrow. It's probably not chapter 3 and more likely me panic-editing things. Sorry in advance! Also, hello, fellow late-night-crew! xD

**Author's Note:**

> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  
> Fun Fact of the Chapter:  
> Ink has one, and only one, emotion of his very own:
> 
> Excitement.  
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
> 
> Random Author Notes:  
> I. Miss. Writing!  
> Hello again! I was supposed to make this a oneshot, maybe twenty pages long, but I'm incapable of writing anything small. So instead, I've uploaded the first twenty-one pages! I'm going to break it into maybe three parts-mostly for my own sanity!-as I get back into the swing of things and edit this together. Hope you don't mind! Just know it was meant to be read all together.
> 
> Alsooo! I gotta say, when I was uploading this I typed in "Sans" in the "relationship tag" tab and a list the size of an encyclopedia popped up! I kid you not! I saw a SansxThanos... There was a SansxTrainingDummy... Pfffft! What dafauq have you guys been up to while I've been gone?! I'm dying over here! (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))  
> Fess up now! Which one of you has been searching SansxJerry?!?!


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